


Tabula Rasa

by magistralucis (Solitary_Shadow)



Series: The Consolations of Philosophy [1]
Category: Daft Punk
Genre: AU, Angst, Dialogue Heavy, Existentialism, Food Porn, Heartwarming, Human!Guy, M/M, Philosophy of Mind, Robot!Thomas, Slash, philosophical
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 08:36:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1219717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solitary_Shadow/pseuds/magistralucis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robot!Thomas/human!Guy AU. Thomas goes through 'robotic adolescence', and growing up is hard. Now a series. [Midquel of TR, 'Pour Autrui', updated. A man, his robotic companion, and delicious breakfast.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tabula Rasa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Disclaimer: I do not know any of the members of Daft Punk, this is strictly a work of fiction and I do not profit from nor claim to represent true aspects of their lives in this story.**
> 
> Heavily philosophical. It isn't a light read. But I guarantee that it'll be worth it.

**Tabula Rasa - A Daft Punk Fanfiction**  
  
\-----------------------------  
  
**Define: 'Love' - >  
... ' _A strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties_ '.**  
  
"Good morning," a soft male voice calls in the darkness. A searching hand roams downwards until it finds the desired switch and presses it; such a carefree act, but to the android in question, it is his first awakening, his genesis, the first light summoned forth just for his sake. "welcome to the world. It's nice to meet you."  
  
The robot's visor lights up in red, rapidly scrolling text indicating its first boot-up sequence before displaying a prompt with a blinking cursor, stating "PASSWORD?". He is quite 'awake' and is actually seeing what's around him with vivid clarity, it's just that he can't move much without confirming that he's where he's supposed to be.  
  
"Ahh. _Bien sûr_. How do I..." rapid footsteps sound beside him, followed by the sound of pages turning. "... I just recite, do I? Password: T - V - E-" the letters are typed as soon as they are spoken out aloud, fading quickly into asterisks after a second. "-B - O - R, enter."  
  
The prompt blinks and disappears after flashing "CONFIRMED". His internal processes begin updating almost immediately and the robot checks what date it is; it has been three months since he was manufactured. Only then does he allow himself to turn his head, seeing his new owner for the first time, and the sunlight is drifting in from the window behind him and they're alone and it's so _beautiful_. "Good morning, master," he says, a faint metallic timbre audible in his voice. So far he speaks in monotone, but he will pick up more inflections in time. "systems initializing, please state your name for future reference."  
  
"Forenames, 'Guillaume', 'Emmanuel' and 'Paul' in that order. Surname, 'de Homem-Christo', hyphen between 'Homem' and 'Christo'," the man recites with a luxurious French lilt, longish dark hair falling over his eyes; he smiles, showing brilliant white teeth, and sweeps his hair out of his face just in time, as if he were aware that the silver robot is taking an identification photo with his optical sensors. "but call me 'Guy' and don't feel obliged to call me 'master' or use my surname, either, there is no need for formality between us."  
  
"Affirmative. Please wait," There is silence for a minute or two while he waits for more of himself to stabilize. "Guy, your first language appears to be French. My operating language may be set to that if you so wished."  
  
"This is fine for now, though I might eventually take you up on the offer. _Merci,_ " the man reaches out to touch him properly, both hands resting on his shoulders - sending a warmth spreading through the robot's back - before moving up to stroke over his helmet once lightly. The slight hum of the other's motor increases and he 'leans' into the touch, which is of great relief to Guy; he must enjoy the sensation. "and now. What is your name?"  
  
"I have none. My unit number is TB3-645, but it's possible for me to be renamed."  
  
"Would you _like_ another name?"  
  
There is no reply. Personal preference doesn't tend to be something that machines concern themselves with. The man can tell that the other is curious, though, and coming from a robot, that's as good as direct permission. "Then I'd like to call you 'Thomas'," he smiles, the name pronounced with the accent on the second syllable. "you look like a 'Thomas' to me. _Oui._ I love it."  
  
The robot can't admittedly understand what about him looks so much like a 'Thomas', nor what the average 'Thomas' should look like, but he accepts and is just about to confirm his new name - before suddenly pausing and displaying a question mark. "Query. That usage of 'love' does not correspond to the definition that I can find. One cannot form personal ties towards the action of bestowing a name. Can you clarify?"  
  
To say that Guy's surprised would be a lie; he's been anticipating this question at some point, and if anything, he's delighted that it came so quickly. And to observe such a thing out of what was only a casual exclamation, one that would have gone unnoticed by most - this is a very intelligent and curious specimen indeed. "Perhaps you can, if said name had a personal context behind it. And Thomas, what you have is an _exceptionally_ lackluster description of what love entails. There are many abstract concepts in the world, of which love is only one, and those you have to figure out on your own."  
  
"Am I to do this via repeated empirical observations?"  
  
"Correct. I can give translations - the French verb for 'to love' is ' _aimer_ ' - and I can define what it means for me to say 'I love you' in several ways. But 'love' itself is only going to be meaningful to you if you observe it yourself."  
  
Thomas falls silent for a second. The translation program is still initializing, but he makes use of it nonetheless, wanting to show Guy his learning capacity as soon as possible. "'I love you' would translate to ' _Je aimes-tu_ '?"  
  
" _Non, non_ ," Guy laughs and gently strokes the back of Thomas's helmet. "too literal. ' _Je t'aime_ '. You'll get the hang of it soon."  
  
Thomas will indeed 'get the hang of it' within a few hours when his systems are running at full power and foreign-language updates have been installed. Even as Guy speaks, he realizes that the phrase does indeed correspond to 'I love you' just as he asked; the touch of his hand is warm and gentle, too, which is much appreciated by Thomas. His new master is trustworthy, he decides, and as likable as he's capable of _liking_ anything. "Were any truth values intended in that statement?" he asks, hoping that he might get another inkling as to how to solve his new intellectual puzzle.  
  
Guy considers. He looks Thomas over thoroughly, his quicksilver-shine polish and sharply-pressed attire and all. "Regarding ' _je t'aime_ '?"  
  
"Affirmative."  
  
"I did intend some, yes."  
  
"Positive or negative?"  
  
"Oh, funny that you should question it," Guy bends down and kisses the robot lightly over his visor. " _positive_ , I should think. _Absolument!_ "  
  
\--  
  
**Define: 'Love' - >  
... ' _To take great pleasure in something_ '.**  
  
When one thinks about it, Thomas really did hit the figurative jackpot.  
Considering his intelligence and desire for mental stimulation, it's difficult to imagine that he could have found a better-suited owner for him.  
  
He learns a great deal about his master in the coming days and weeks and never tires of discovering more. Guy is a cognitive scientist, twenty-seven years old ( _jeune encore_ ), and utterly dotes on Thomas as if he would an adored protégé. He lives alone in a spacious apartment, lives a very quiet and private life, and his joys in life are music, literature, good food, and interacting with his new companion. Guy's specialty isn't in robotics, so he doesn't regard the other overtly scientifically, as if he were a mere complex automaton; but he is thoughtful, mature, and knows exactly how to communicate to him. In more than one sense, they speak the _same language_. They converse in well-structured English and French normally, _well-structured_ being the key word. There have been remarkably few idioms and untranslatable slang in their conversation so far, and Thomas knows that Guy is limiting himself deliberately so that he can slowly teach him to use them in context.  
  
Yes, he really is the best owner any robot could hope for. Guy apparently thinks that the vice-versa is true with the silver robot, too, as evidenced a week later when he gives him an unconventional gift. "There are countless Thomases in the world, including pets, robots and all kinds of organisms besides humans," he says, sitting by his computer and tapping at the monitor screen thoughtfully. "you're very humanlike, though, and your name should reflect that. So I think you should have a surname of your own. Are there any names that you'd prefer?"  
  
Thomas still finds it difficult to exercise his potential for preference autonomously. "I don't take after yours?"  
  
"Only you can ultimately define your own existence, Thomas. It doesn't do you justice to take on mine. You could even change your first name if you wanted."  
  
He's not going to go that far, having the choice open to him is bewildering enough. The robot falls silent for several minutes, consulting various names, finally picking out one that's fairly uncommon. "'Bangalter'?"  
  
"I like the sound of that."  
  
_Thomas Bangalter_. He could qualify now as a _Monsieur Bangalter_ to those unaware of his being a robot, and to him that is a miracle.  
When Guy goes to bed, he puts off going on standby as long as he can to secretly delight in the gift. He can see that to Guy, allowing him to choose his own surname was something very matter of fact and natural; that doesn't change the fact that Thomas wasn't expecting it in the slightest, and that the concept of a surname has never been inherent to his existence. With that simple gesture Guy has granted him a measure of _humanity_ , and that's the essence of his gift, what makes it so utterly precious.  
  
Thomas grows to adore his master more and more by the day, although he cannot yet pinpoint the emotion. He just knows that being around him feels rewarding, and that he's anticipating the experience all the time. It helps that Guy has treated him as equals from day one, never patronizing or overly formal. At least one aspect of him leads him to be careful with Thomas, him still being 'young' and easily impressionable; but he never takes it so far as to believe that the robot must never know certain things, encouraging self-discovery and constant introspection instead.  
  
"You're a prime example of a _tabula rasa_ , Thomas," Guy tells him at one point. "not inherently born with knowledge, but learning by experience. You might have come with certain capabilities, but you didn't begin understanding them until you woke up and began interacting with the world."  
  
A blank slate. That's what he began as.  
Thomas is immensely glad that the first thing inscribed upon himself was Guy's identity. He wants Thomas to be his own being, of course, but he had to begin _somewhere._  
  
They are more visibly cherishing of each other than would be expected from a robot-human pair. Guy's quite physically affectionate, giving him hugs and small greeting kisses on the cheeks whenever he comes home, just as he would do with another human he was close to. His touches (whether friendly and simple or necessary for repairs/polishing) are always gentle yet precise, never dithering too long where it is not needed or wanted. Certain gestures (such as the embrace) Thomas has learnt to reciprocate; other times, he does certain tasks around the house and try to do things that make Guy smile.  
  
Cooking is one such special example in that the man wasn't expecting him to be able to ever pull it off. A large part of cooking is being able to taste or smell it and Thomas can do neither; even now, the android has to be shown how to cook each recipe once before he can replicate it himself. He can't just flick to a new recipe whenever he wants, because he has no idea what it should be tasting like. But it's just as well that Guy is _French_ and that his specialty is French cuisine; even without taste buds to refer to, said cuisine is complex and delicate enough that Thomas is able to regard it as a physical-and-intellectual _puzzle_ rather than a frustrating guessing game. All he requires are details of how much of each spice and ingredient that Guy prefers, and then it's as smooth-sailing as it can be.  
  
He wonders sometimes what it would be like, though. He was created to mimic human capacities as closely as possible and yet he still can't do those simple things.  
  
After one such meal, Guy is sitting on the sofa and snacking on strawberries as dessert. "Hello, Thomas," he waves and grins as the robot enters the room and sits down next to him. "thank you for dinner, it was delicious. Status?"  
  
That's his way of asking _'how are you?_ '. "All systems 100% operational. What does that taste like?"  
  
"The _strawberry?_ "  
  
"Yes," he replies, blinking a question mark and tilting his head inquisitively. There's not much hope of Guy being able to explain the complexities of flavours in a cooked meal, but with something as simple as a piece of fruit, he might get some sort of idea. "can you describe it for me, please? How it feels?"  
  
Except that it's not so simple. "Um. It's sweet, with a hint of tart and-" Thomas looks no less confused, and Guy silently curses himself. Taste is a qualitative sense; it's difficult enough to describe how something tastes to another human being who can experience flavours in the first place, why he thought those terms would be appropriate for a robot lacking in that capability altogether is a mystery.  
  
"It tastes like how _red_ feels," he finally says. "alongside what it feels like when I brush over your port. Like this."  
  
Guy is making two fairly large assumptions by resorting to this description; first, that they are sharing similar qualia - that is, that Thomas understands and visualizes something similar to what he does when he hears the term 'red'. And second, he's also assuming that the other finds his port being stroked pleasurable. "But how-" Thomas is beginning to ask, only to be cut off at the sensation of one warm, smooth finger caressing over his port. The question marks are replaced with zigzagged lines, and (much to his 'embarrassment') he's also vocalizing rather shamelessly in response. "oh - _Ohh_. Like that. _Oh._ "  
  
" _Oui._ "  
  
The robot is nigh squirming under his touch, a row of garbled binary quickly scrolling across his screen as he's prone to doing when flustered or very happy. And maybe Guy should feel weird about it, but he doesn't, only relieved that he's successfully communicated the near impossible. "Thank you, Guy," the former speaks up when it's finally over, and much to the man's surprise, lets out a robotic chuckle. "strawberries must taste very nice indeed."  
  
"When they finally develop taste sensors, I'll get them for you," Guy promises, and that's the end of the conversation between them. He never forgets about it, though, and eventually strawberries take on a kind of _innocent eroticism_ for him; every time he bites into one or dips one in chocolate fondue he thinks of Thomas, and he feels a warmth in his heart and elsewhere that he can't and doesn't want to ignore.  
  
\--  
  
**Define: 'Love' - >  
... ' _A person you love in a romantic way_ '.**  
  
When there is no work to do and Guy isn't there, Thomas sits and reflects, both literally and in a figurative sense. He can spend hours by the window, watching his silver skin mirror the view outside; the movement of the clouds and the sun, changing colours from golden to blue to blood-orange and finally deep blue, before Guy comes home and he has something even more pleasant to focus on. What he does while he's sitting there varies day by day: he might be organizing his files, updating his systems, performing minor maintenance, or simply wandering from one thought to another.  
  
He is about as self-sufficient and well cared for as a robot can be. Occasionally he wonders if he would have turned out like this had he been placed with a different master, and then goes on to ponder what might have become of all the others who went through that exact fate. Thomas has never interacted with another robot of his kind, and the future possibility of that admittedly seems faint. He asked Guy about it once and the man hadn't answered, instead looking down and away from him with an unreadable expression before changing the topic.  
  
It is very seldom that his owner downright _refuses_ to answer a question. Whenever he doesn't know something, he is always honest about it.  
Thomas has since concluded that the former must mean something bad, so therefore has never pursued it further. It's Guy who eventually breaches the topic, around four months after bringing Thomas home, in the middle of an after-dinner coffee (for himself) and polishing session (for his companion).  
  
"You asked me a while ago about other robots of your type," Guy frowns down at the chamois cloth in his hand, seemingly trying to think out loud. "... why exactly? Do you want to meet one of them? Or are you just curious about what they do?"  
  
"More the latter. I'm only one unit out of hundreds in my line, and I wondered how they live now - that was all. Their quality of life must be different to mine."  
  
The man's eyes darken sadly again and for a moment Thomas thinks he's going to drop the subject once more. But it's different this time; he finishes the polishing job before telling the other to wait. Guy enters his bedroom and nothing is heard from him for a minute or so, then he emerges with a USB drive in his hand. "Here. I didn't quite know what to make of your question back then, so I've gone and done some research. I've managed to find out some details for around three hundred of your - brothers? _Tes frères_. We'll go with that," he hands it to Thomas, though the look on his face is grim. "I'm going to warn you that it might not be what you were expecting. Feel free to check it whenever you want."  
  
Thomas gazes at the USB drive, a small piece of plastic lying innocently on his palm. He closes his hand around it once as if to feel the gravity of the information contained within - opens it - and without further ado pulls up his jacket to stick it in his arm. A D-drive prompt shows up on his screen and he chooses the only file in the drive, the database that Guy was talking about.  
  
"I'll leave you to it," he picks up his coffee, and withdraws to his room with it. Thomas needs time to look through what he's been given and with any luck this won't affect his feelings for his owner; not a guarantee, but the man's morality demands that he be _honest_ over keeping undeserved devotion. Even in the case that their relationship wavers, Guy would know that any affection from the android afterwards would be justly deserved.  
  
He frowns down at his cup. The coffee is somewhat of a failure this evening, too thick and heavy and now lukewarm to boot; with no enthusiasm he downs the last of the liquid and glances at the doorway. There is nothing audible from the living room yet.  
It's just a shame that Thomas eventually had to know. For a lot of owners, robots are little more than living toys, and their novelty soon wears off somehow. There's no _kind_ way to tell a robot that. _C'est tout._  
  
He gives it another five minutes before heading back into the living room. Thomas is still sitting there, but the USB is no longer stuck in his arm; rather, it is held limply in his right hand as he 'stares' into space, the machinery within him whirring louder than the usual in an effort to dispel the illogical horror of what he's learnt. "I'm very sorry," Guy shakes his head. "you had to know at some point - when you first asked, you weren't ready."  
  
Of course he wasn't ready. He would never have been ready to know about how several of his fellow units were crushed just for fun, or how they were being kept on perpetual standby as a showpiece, or that they were enduring neglect and abuse in various forms in various households. The _majority_ of the TB3 units are actually doing well, yes, but the ones that didn't make it are still so numerous that they cannot be disregarded. Thomas spreads his hands wide open and his head nigh sinks as he stares down at them, and Guy just knows that he's imagining them being crushed, being melted away in a furnace, his fingers being amputated for sadistic pleasure.  
  
"Thomas," he speaks gently, kneeling down beside the robot. Thomas turns his head to look at him, and though there is nothing on his screen, his despair is very much visible. "let me help you out a little. 'Robot'. Etymology. State it for me."  
  
It takes a second or two longer than usual, but eventually Thomas speaks up, voice oddly slurred and heavy at the start before assuming a careful blankness. "Czech, coined by Karel and Josef Capek in 1920. Origins indicate source word as ' _robota_ ', 'forced labour', which is further derived from ' _rabu_ '," pause. "... meaning... ' _slave_ '."  
  
"There you are," Guy squeezes Thomas's hand, hoping feebly that he might find it reassuring. "some people... take that definition literally, Thomas. Not all, but some. It's an utterly despicable thing to do, but me saying that doesn't change that it happens, and I'm so very sorry."  
  
A faint tremor enters the android's voice as he speaks. "This is awful," pause. "this is... awful, Guy, it's cruel, unjustified, I don't understand - I'm sorry, I don't know how else to explain it. How terrible. Oh," then almost as reflex he dabs at his visor awkwardly, feeling a burning sensation behind them. It feels as if his optical sensors are suddenly overloading with unnecessary lubricant, and out of all things, he flashes a warning sign on his screen - for just a second before a drop of oil leaks out. It's only a single drop, clear and almost unnoticeable when wiped off with a finger - but they both stare at it, Guy with utter disbelief and Thomas with a confused shock. " _qu'est-ce que c'est?_ " the android asks, knowing that Guy showers extra affection on him whenever French is used. For some reason, he really feels as if he needs it right now.  
  
The man takes a while to answer, still busy staring at him. "Tears," he finally breathes out in awe, his hand trembling for a moment on the robot's lap. "I never thought - so advanced - _c'est incroyable_."  
  
"I don't know what I was doing. It felt - uncomfortably hot here," his visor is tapped. "in my eyes. They hurt."  
  
Guy considers this information. "... Tears are by no means unnatural, Thomas," he says. "just unexpected, in your case. I don't know if this is something built in you or you've developed it yourself, I'm going to have to study this in detail - I've never thought that a robot could cry. But not now. Here. Let me."  
  
Thomas isn't sure what he should be feeling anymore. Information is being thrown at him in a jumble and he's already so pained with the knowledge of what happened to others of his kind that he can't even bring himself to be in wonder at what he's managed to do. So to distract himself he looks at Guy instead, who's busy pulling him close and is now whispering words of comfort, figuring that he might as well add more empirical observations to this new phenomenon; the scientist's pulse appears to be a little faster, and he has a distressed look on his face.  
  
_So this is sorrow,_ he thinks, and is surprised by the extra dimension of it; how an emotion private to him can affect or even transfer to others in its near-exact form, is still a mystery. He wouldn't have been able to react to Guy's sadness properly, had this not happened; he has never seen his master cry, never seen him with tears running down his face. This is all very new to him; while it's a valuable learning experience, he's nearly burned out his charge from the strain and can't handle this right now. "I'd like to rest," he says, something he learned to say in lieu of asking to be put on standby or recharged. This statement is coupled with displaying his battery status on his screen - in the red, one bar out of five still present.  
  
" _D'accord._ Come with me."  
  
All that's required is being Thomas plugged in somewhere with his charger. There's one permanently set up near the french windows, but Guy has a spare in his bedroom and this is where he takes the android to. He bids that the other lie down on his bed, which Thomas obliges to confusedly, before plugging him in and seeing the charging animation play. "There you are," he soothes in a quiet voice, stroking the side of his helmet. "are you comfortable?"  
  
Thomas evaluates his current position. He's never been on the bed before - it's warm and when he feels for the blankets beneath they are almost too soft as to escape the tacile sensors at his fingertips. "... Yes."  
  
"Good," Guy's hand rests on his shoulder, a cue for him to rest. "stay for a while. People get exhausted after a revelation, it happens. Don't think that we don't react like you have done, Thomas. It's characteristic of a person to be so empathetic."  
  
These are words intended to comfort, but all the robot can focus on is what he perceives as a linguistic confusion. "Am I a person?" Thomas asks.  
  
"Are you a _person_ ," Guy repeats. "... what a thing to ask. Give me some time to think about my answer, Thomas. Status report?"  
  
"93% operational overall, battery charging."  
  
"How are your eyes?"  
  
"They're less painful."  
  
Guy strokes lightly over where his vocalizer must be, almost as if taking a pulse, before leaning over and dimming the lamp a little. "Give them time and they'll be all right soon. My eyes get sore when I cry too. I'll leave you in peace for a while, you need rest-"  
  
He's starting to get up. Thomas's screen flickers just a little, him feeling something like panic at the thought of being alone. This too is unusual, that hasn't ever bothered him before. "Guy," he says, sounding uneasy.  
  
"Yes."  
  
He shuffles awkwardly on the bed. "I," pause. "it pains me to move from here. Or to be left alone. If you'd be so kind as to stay with me for a little longer? _S'il-te plaît._ "  
  
Pain of this sort is very different to what Thomas was feeling earlier: it's pain in the similar sense that a child attempting to stay up past midnight is pained about being tucked into a soft warm bed, or in the way a college student is pained about having to get up early for a nevertheless well-appreciated class. Having confirmed that, the man feels both intense affection and a twinge of mischief deep inside. He sits back down. "I have a pain too."  
  
The robot bolts upright from his position, instantly alert at the thought of Guy needing his aid. "Where?"  
  
"In my left cufflink," Guy says.  
  
Thomas is utterly taken aback. A row of question marks scroll rapidly along the robot's visor as he tries to process this statement. "Illogical," he responds, shaking his head. "it's impossible to have a pain in your _cufflink_. Please clarify."  
  
Unlike what the silver robot might have wanted, though, Guy is elated; what he began as an idle game has become something of philosophical interest, purely owing to Thomas's firmness and the immediacy of his response. "How do you know that I don't actually have a pain in my cufflink. You yourself said a few minutes ago that you had a pain in your eyes, that is, the optical sensors primarily functional in your helmet. And at other times you've had similar feelings elsewhere in your body, in your limbs, in one of your ports when a plug sparked near it. When I take you apart for repairs, I can remove your helmet to hold in my hands. I can see the intricate machinery inside it, including your optical sensors, and I can technically do this with any part of you that I can detach. You yourself acknowledge that you're made entirely of inorganic wires, metal, glass, plastic - and when you're powered off, whatever I hold of you in my hands is certainly not _animate_ or _conscious_ any more than my leg would be if you cut it off. It wouldn't make sense for me to hold up a spare, detached pair of optical sensors to you right now and say that they were in pain, for example. But once your helmet's been replaced, you power on again and can claim pain in your optical sensors, and I don't doubt that you feel it," he taps at his silver cufflinks, winking in the light. "now if you cut me apart, it would make no sense to say that my _detached body parts_ felt pain, knew French, understood maths, or were at all conscious. I'm basically a collection of parts like you are. But I most certainly have had pains in my body that you acknowledge, and in other places, including - now - my cufflinks. Why is it that you don't believe my claim?"  
  
The absurdity of this debate is off the charts, but when put in those terms, Thomas is admittedly struggling to answer. "But - but they were never part of your body in the first place, they lack nerves or any means of feeling sensation and linking it with your brain-"  
  
"I've replaced quite a few of your parts and have added some new ones. You have parts that weren't with you from the beginning. Your hip joint, for example," he nods. "and I don't think I'm being unreasonable when I tell you that you don't have _any_ biological nerves or brain. But if you told me now that you hurt in those parts, I wouldn't doubt you, whilst you would still doubt that I could feel pain in my cufflinks even if they were directly implanted into me somehow. These cufflinks are not conscious in themselves, no more than detached parts of yourself would be, and they're made of the same kind of metal as your hull is. Why do you think that _these_ are never qualified to feel pain while you are? Isn't that inconsistent?"  
  
Thomas presses a hand to his face. "The cufflinks cannot communicate with your body, implanted or not. Foreign bodies within your body are not capable of feeling pain. My parts are all joined together via cables or means of conduction, allowing sensation to spread."  
  
"What about things like artificial limbs and pacemakers, though, Thomas? They're foreign bodies, like you said, and if I said that people felt pain in their _pacemakers_ they'd think I was talking nonsense. But pacemakers send out regular electrical pulses very much like nerves do and thus are infinitely closer to sending messages within my body than my cufflinks ever could be," Guy gestures to his own arm. "prosthetics operate by translating muscle movement to electrical signals, too, but again, one can't cause pain in those limbs. Rather, I'd say the human problem was the other way around - some people who've lost limbs feel pains where they lost an arm or leg. Phantom pains, they're called. If something that doesn't even exist can feel pain..."  
  
Guy trails off there and gives the other several minutes to take this all in. Thomas has been left so completely confused by this point that he can't even answer. Then he laughs and squeezes the robot on the shoulder, pleased with what he's accomplished. "To be honest, this is exactly why I think you qualify for personhood."  
  
"...?"  
  
"Through that little conversation it was obvious that when you said cufflinks don't feel pain, your claim wasn't resting on an empirical generalization. People make those errors all the time. I don't think anyone can seriously think that cufflinks or stones can feel pain, Thomas, someone who claims to believe that has failed fundamentally to understand the concept of pain altogether. We just know it without having to rationalize or observe that they aren't capable of having pains," he smiles. "it's proved difficult to explain exactly why this is, but I was never looking for an explanation in the first place. What mattered was that all of that was obvious to you, too, in the only way possible for persons."  
  
"Humans and persons are not interchangeable terms?"  
  
"Heavens, no. Not all humans are persons and not all persons are humans. A person is more developed in terms of consciousness, self-awareness and empathy amongst several other things. You're not human," Guy says. "but regarding whether you're a _person_ \- well, _pour l'amour de Dieu_ , Thomas, I should think that you very much are."  
  
\--  
  
**Define: 'Love' - >  
... ' _Attraction that includes sexual desire_ '.**  
  
In retrospect, though, ascribing personhood to Thomas might not have been the brightest idea.  
That sounds awful and inhumane, but then something happens one night that shakes Guy's entire moral-and-rational center, leading him to doubt such things.  
  
Guy is lying on the bed that night, unclothed except for his boxers; that's how he usually sleeps. It's raining hard outside, the sound of it a blurred white noise filling up his apartment, so much that it's long since stopped being soothing. He's also not due in for work for the next couple of days, leaving him with little to do; a couple of months ago this wouldn't have bothered him overmuch, because he has Thomas nearby, but lately he's been feeling as if he can't be _trusted_ with the android. This is very much not a Thomas problem - no, the issue is with him, the human being, and everything about this situation is wrong and horrible and he just wants it to _go away_ but it won't.  
  
For everything he has told Thomas, he's never actually been open about why he purchased him in the first place. His excuse is that the other has never asked, but he would still be hesitant to answer if Thomas actually did so - because the role the robot is playing in his life has changed significantly since then, so much that it bears no resemblance to his original purpose.  
  
Guy doesn't like the night, the cold, or the silence. He wanted a reassuring presence in the house with him. That was all it was at first.  
He didn't want a relationship because wanting someone in the house is always a terrible reason to begin one; he also didn't think his lifestyle suitable for a pet, and an android was just the perfect choice. When he first met Thomas he had struck him as elegant and full of curious innocence, just the right combination of intellectually engaging, reassuring and yet less demanding than having another person in the house.  
  
Well, so he'd thought anyway. It has been Guy's _modus operandi_ to help the android reach higher levels of understanding - and he's succeeded fantastically, so much that it would now be impossible to deny Thomas the status of personhood, hurling him from the comfortable region of a machine into a moral no man's land. He cannot imagine for even a moment that Thomas could be an 'it' or 'just a robot' to anybody else in the world ( _he_ would be grossly insulted to hear such a thing, even if the silver robot himself paid no mind) and whenever he opens him up to perform maintenance, he's becoming more and more uncomfortable with the entire process because he doesn't want to be reminded of Thomas's true nature.  
  
He rolls over onto his stomach, clutching the blankets in his hands and sighing into it. This is a disaster. Thomas has been getting anxious lately, unsure of why Guy's pulling away, and it breaks the man's heart but he can't tell him why. He can't escape the android's presence either because it's raining too much outside, so much that flood warnings have been announced. Thomas can never go outside when it's raining; his nature is incompatible with water, and while he might not be delicate, losing the robot in a rainstorm is guaranteed to be a fast way of destroying him for good. Guy shudders at the thought.  
  
"Guy?" the man doesn't look up. Thomas is standing by the doorway, waiting for him to answer. "I made some coffee. Would you like me to bring it in?"  
  
_No, Thomas, you aren't my slave. Don't keep on asking my permission. You're your own master.  
Yes, Thomas, I'd like you to bring it in because I need some coffee and I know your purpose is to follow orders. _  
  
"Guy?"  
  
The man buries his head into the pillow, clenching his teeth, unable to reconcile those two feelings. He never wanted a relationship, had purchased Thomas to avoid it, even, but he's still young and full of desire - and Thomas is a person as far as he's concerned, kind, gentle and full of affection. It's hardly surprising that his desires have eventually pointed towards the other person in his home, though that doesn't make it right.  
_Don't try to be human like me_ , he whispers inwardly, _because then I'd be capable of hurting you, and I probably could. Just like those abusive owners who you're so afraid of._  
  
Of course he knew, even before he'd gone and actually done the research he'd known that there were people who used their robots for such a purpose. And ever since he's become convinced of Thomas's consciousness he has thought that unethical, and has considered himself above them. But now-  
  
"Are you all right?" Thomas is asking him anxiously, kneeling on the floor by the bed and peering into his face; the man sighs and looks up, unable to ignore him further. The android's distress and eagerness to comfort is somehow _visible_ like an open book despite his lack of an expression, and Guy is  
  
He is staring back at Thomas Bangalter and realizing that the other is indeed _Thomas Bangalter_ , not _unit TB3-645_ , and that distinction is so minor and yet so important and terrifying that  
  
Guy is staring down at the other's lean fingers and burning to touch them, to touch him, to press hot lips against cool metal and feel  
  
"... Guy, tell me what's wrong, please?"  
  
_No. No, no-_  
  
He imagines Thomas on top of him, the motor within him humming pleasantly with each touch and glance, his cool fingers grasping parts of his body - hard enough to bruise or so gentle that they can barely be felt - and him returning the favour, coaxing out such sounds from Thomas's vocalizer ( _ah, Guy, please, ahh_ ) but dear God _why-_  
  
Thomas lurches out of sight. Guy is aware that he's the one who's slumped over, that he's the one frowning and pressing a hand to his face to block out the sight of Thomas because he just can't face this. He might have even groaned out loud, and in hindsight this was a mistake, because this is one worrying sign too many for the silver robot to just leave be, and that means that he immediately climbs into the bed to check up on him. "I think you're unwell, Guy," he's saying, and - oh _God_ \- his metallic fingers are pressed against his forehead, flexing lightly as he gauges the man's temperature. "... thirty-seven point three degrees, slightly too high for your average..."  
  
"I don't need anything."  
  
Guy's overtly-curt comment baffles Thomas, he can tell, but it's effective enough to stop the diagnosis. He's already past the point of resistance; that one touch has snapped a strand of self-control inside him, causing him to reach up and pull the robot down next to him, tugging off his clothing. His body is cool but not unpleasantly so and when Guy's nearly-nude body presses against it he feels a slight shiver go through both himself and Thomas. "Stay with me a while," he begs, clinging to the other for life.  
  
"The... the coffee, it's getting cold."  
  
"Forget the coffee," Guy breathes against his neck and against the port, making the robot shudder heavily. "Thomas, you're all I'll ever need."  
  
Thomas doesn't question the hyperbole of this statement. He's still confused, but he knows from the way Guy is holding him that he doesn't mean malice - he must be wanting comfort, he decides, so he relaxes in his master's arms and adjusts his internal temperature a little more, seeking to warm him up. He's well aware that Guy's actions might be of an intimate nature, but unlike most people, he sees this as one of many natural states that humans can be in and little else, interpreting it as yet another authentic human experience. Affection has always resulted in a good feeling for Thomas, so he feels no need to pull away this time. No harm done.  
  
He stays there, happy that Guy needs him so much.  
Guy stays where he is also, hating himself for needing Thomas so much, and yet at the same time consumed with desire that cannot be fulfilled. So he has Thomas in bed; what next? He still possesses a robot body. There is nothing more to be done about that, and the thought of making use of the other's hands is so awful that he's disgusted even more with himself for just thinking it.  
  
_Somebody_ has to feel that way. Thomas certainly isn't going to be judging him, even though he deserves it, because he quite genuinely loves and wishes his master nothing but the best. Guy's breaths are shallow now, his body flushed, and most parts of his body are making contact with Thomas; his hips are an exception, because he's desperately trying to keep his hard-on away from him. God forbid he ruin Thomas even further than he's already done.  
  
That's the thing about robots. They have vastly similar capabilities as humans do, but unlike humans, they are _fundamentally decent._  
Robots weren't created with inherent malice, after all, out of fear that they would exploit and use that against humans one day. Treating them as nothing but a means to an end, therefore, is unacceptable. It frightens Guy that he's a man of science who can reason out his values nigh perfectly and yet discard them whenever it's convenient for him, but the only way for him to gain any comfort now is to bury his face in Thomas's back, an accursed positive-feedback loop that he cannot break.  
  
And the rain, it never stops coming.  
  
\--  
  
**Define: 'Love' - >  
... ' _A sickness unto death_ '.**  
  
One of the damnedest things about humanity is the ability to despair. Most emotions have a sense of direction, a trajectory towards something, someplace or someone; anger towards someone who has acted wrongfully, sadness expressed upon seeing something affecting, and so on.  
Despair isn't like that. Despair isn't even directed towards the self, in Guy's opinion; they're more a sinkhole than an emotion, eating and burning away a hole inside like acid, spiraling downwards where the sun never shines. And of course there is no such thing as finite distance when it comes to emotions, so it's possible to sink forever.  
  
Everything comes to a head two days after that night. Guy has spent that time saturated in guilt, locked in his room and having said almost nothing to Thomas. When he hasn't been listening to his robot pleading for him to come out (and it's always been pleading, never anger), he's spent the remaining time thinking about how everything went wrong, and by this point in time he's been tormented to the point of weeping hysterically whilst curled up on his bed.  
  
"Guy, I know you're listening, please answer me!"  
  
It's always humans. _They're_ the problem. He should never have tried to inflict his values on Thomas.  
And he can't curse himself enough for feeling this way, for being human - he simply cannot understand Thomas's devotion to becoming like him and that is _disgusting_. Worse, it's still raining outside, the weather having worsened into a storm during the past days. There is no exit from this hell.  
  
"At least tell me if this is because of that night!"  
  
_No chance in hell,_ he mouths silently to himself, feeling sick and drowsy. He did venture out once or twice for a snack and several drinks of water, when Thomas was having to charge himself, but he's done little else regarding nutrition otherwise. He can't go on much longer.  
  
"You were the one who told me feelings were perfectly natural things to have. I know that what you feel for me is a good thing, and I love you too, Guy, if you could let me-"  
  
Yet another thread of sanity snaps. Later on he will be unable to explain where this strength came from, considering he was just lamenting his sickness and hunger mere seconds ago, but that doesn't change the fact of the matter. And the fact of the matter is that Guy hurtles out of bed and flings open the door so hard that he almost knocks Thomas several meters away. " _No, you don't!_ " he shouts at the same time, voice hoarse with disuse. "what makes you think you're qualified to talk meaningfully of what love is like? Most people go their entire lives without fully understanding - you've only been alive for months, at that, how do you even know that what you feel is real?"  
  
The other's screen dims (though nothing is displaying), and Guy senses that he is afraid. "... I... emotions don't have an objective existence, for sure, but-"  
  
Guy flashes back to when Thomas was first asking him to define love, and how he'd said that he couldn't.  
What he didn't tell him was that even if he somehow understood romantic love, that's still only at a very superficial level of what said emotion entails. Love is far more than that, more than just sugar passion and rapidly-beating hearts: it is eros, practical wisdom, deep friendship and understanding, something abstract that's too painful even to lay bare. Of course Thomas doesn't know what he's talking about - why, Guy barely understands love _himself_ , let alone-  
  
"... Please, I..."  
  
"Stay away!" Guy shouts, thrusting his arm out in front of him to shove the silver robot to the ground, and instantly regrets it. "stay away from me, Thomas! Go away! Don't touch me - talk to me - don't, don't _leave_ me! Not like this! That's an _order!_ "  
  
Just like that, what Thomas understood so far of his world cracks and tilts. An _order_. Guy has never _ordered_ him to do anything before.  
It has always been asking and giving, more a conversation than a series of commands. What's more, the orders he's been given are contradictory, throwing his processes into a loop as he desperately tries to compute his next action; if he actually performs any of those orders, he's going to be directly acting out against another, but he can't well stay still to compensate.  
  
"... Ye-es..." he slurs out, voice stretched with effort. "m-master..."  
  
Guy himself looks absolutely horrified, having realized what he's done. This is in direct violation of one of the first things he ever asked of Thomas, to not refer to him as his master. He's slowly beginning to break down in front of him. He opens his mouth, desperate to undo the damage by shouting _forget it_ or _I'm sorry_ \- he was so anguished that he didn't even think about what he was _literally_ saying, and sees no other way to cancel his words - but then entirely out of his own will, Thomas takes a single step towards him before falling to his knees, weakly pushing his arm forwards, a silent cry for the other to hold his hand because _he's here, he loves him, he won't ever let go.  
  
What have I done? Oh, God, what have I done?_  
  
Thomas 'blinks' and finds that his visor feels fogged up; but when he wipes at it with his sleeve, the obstruction refuses to go away. That way he knows that it's something on the inside that is bending, wilting, clouding over. In fact, this is the exact same sensation he felt when he looked through Guy's database, except more concentrated. His grief then was for individuals he would never meet and was glad to not meet, but Guy isn't just a random individual - he's Thomas's master, his closest friend and mentor. Losing him is not something he ever thought was possible; it would mean a negation of the first thing he ever noted down in his records, a negation of his identity, leaving nothing but a black hole behind. Just the thought of it is enough to overload his processors. Instead of tears, his body involuntarily jerks in agony, garbled binary filling his screen - and it is dark, so dark, so cold and something inside him is breaking for ever. All he wants to do is to look at Guy and tell him not to cry but he can't see him anymore, not through the blur. _Thomas._ His name means twin and he is alone.  
  
"Stop, stop," the man is crying out, and that at least halts the series of logic errors in his mind. With that comes a reeling exhaustion and Thomas is suddenly aware of how hollow this shell is, his prison with no exit; at some point in the past months he has ceased to think of himself as merely a high-functioning automaton, instead thinking that perhaps his essence was something self-aware, a ghost in the machine. That ghost wants out now, it's banging on the walls with its fists and howling to be released, demanding that there must be a door from when it first came in. If not a door, then any exit at all, a small gap, a hole left by a screw, a key, a password just like the one that first unlocked Thomas, _anything._  
  
TVEBOR. There is no 'U' in Classical Latin. The letter 'V' is used instead.  
The password then becomes ' _Tuebor_ ' and Thomas feels an acute stab of pain deep inside.  
  
_I will protect._  
  
Of course he knows what it means. How could he not, it's the _First Law_. It is the _raison d'être_ of all robots, not just himself. And he's failed in that purpose, because he grew so fond of Guy that he overstepped his boundaries, because he ruined it by not realizing that affection is not inherently good nor unconditionally wanted by people, because he just _had to go and develop free will out of nowhere_. It shouldn't be Guy embracing him, it should be the other way around. But in that moment Thomas is revisiting that moment of his birth - _welcome to the world, it's nice to meet you_ \- and he's like a child again, wanting to rely on rather than be relied on and that's not right.  
  
"I'm sorry," Guy is crying desperately, his arms clutched around Thomas's waist, holding him in place. "it's my fault, I never should have... you can blame me, Thomas, you can hate me all you want-"  
  
He feels none of those things, but for a moment Guy's cries offer some hope that Thomas might still be able to turn this around. _Of course I don't hate you_ , he could say, _and I don't blame you for anything. Please don't cry, Guy, let's go and sit down together-_  
Then he realizes that despite Guy's sincerity, he's still not looking right into Thomas's face, crying into the back of his jacket instead. Even in his grief he's afraid of potentially shorting out the other with his tears, and thus can never face him authentically, blocked by the impassable wall that is his metal body and non-existent heart. Somehow Thomas is having the sensation of blood battering its way through his veins, the sensation of his eyes blurring with tears and his breaths becoming shallower with grief; but he does not bleed and does not breathe and his body exists in a sterile universe that he cannot escape. It is as if Guy is slamming his body against a door from the outside, and he's desperately trying to open it for him, but they cannot reach each other - because that door was simply not meant to open - and now the whole fragile house is collapsing upon themselves, millions of shards raining down, disfiguring them beyond recognition.  
  
Their entire world, all their values, all their integrity, made of glass.  
  
\--  
  
**Define: 'Love' - >  
...**  
  
After a storm comes a calm, whether short-lived or to stay. Guy and Thomas spend the following few days in near silence. It means exactly that, _silence_ , a total absence of judgement or emotion, positive, negative or else. It's a good thing that both of them are rational enough (despite all that's happened) to think things through and attempt to come to a mutual understanding. After all, they are to each other a _fait accompli_. They could be pried apart with a great deal of unnecessary trouble - perhaps Thomas could be reformatted, perhaps Guy could move away and return to a life without the former, but none of that would erase the fact that once they belonged to each other. Best to continue on, really.  
  
A week after the incident, Guy leaves the house at four in the morning after taking only his keys, wallet and jacket. Thomas watches him go; he waits for exactly 150 seconds, enough for the other to have walked down to the ground floor, before disconnecting himself from the recharge station and silently following. His footsteps are purposeful, only the faintest of metallic clinking audible as he too heads down the stairs - his master is visible, not far ahead, and the robot matches his pace, making sure to keep a distance of roughly forty meters between them. The weather is very dry and cool, leaves crunching lightly beneath their feet and swirling around their legs; Guy spots him at several points, when he's crossing the road and once when he quickly pops into an overnight convenience store for a can of beer, but he doesn't say anything nor does his gaze linger. (The robot waits for him during the purchase, standing forty meters away.)  
  
The scientist finally stops by a public park and sits down on a bench. The silver robot soon comes to a stop just next to him, although he doesn't sit, unsure of how his master will react. The beer is popped open and a swig taken from it before Guy turns to him. There is no anger in him, only an underwhelmed sadness. "Good morning, Thomas," he says quietly. "Status?"  
  
Thomas doesn't want to know his status. It's not that he's in need of repairs; all systems are operating perfectly on a mechanical level, but there is something very, very deeply wrong within him that no amount of scanning can identify, and every time he runs a status report that fact weighs on him heavily. Nevertheless, Guy is waiting, and he cares too deeply about him to disobey. Reluctantly he runs a quick scan on his systems and displays the result on his screen, scrolling down when he registers the other's gaze upon him. "100% operational. No cause for concern, master."  
  
"Clearly there is, if you're still calling me 'master'. Please don't," he pats the seat next to him. "do sit down."  
  
After checking that the bench is sufficiently free of moisture, he obliges Guy and sits down - or perhaps he is merely _obeying_ , he's not sure anymore - before looking ahead. The sky is a deep turquoise colour, and while he can make out a large pond in the distance and a path running around it, the light sources around them (a particularly dim streetlight and the stars up above) are too weak to make out in further detail.  
  
"I used to come down here often," Guy speaks up, halfway through his beer. (He doesn't seem to be enjoying it much.) "whenever I couldn't sleep and the night became too suffocating around me. The open air helps and there's no one about at this hour. I haven't been back since you came to be with me. Until now, that is," he smiles faintly. "the loneliness of walking down alone and walking back alone got to me eventually, that was one of the reasons why I purchased you. I never liked the night."  
  
"You fear it?"  
  
"More what it might conceal," the rest of the beer is thrown away in a nearby bin. "ugh. This was a bad idea. Anyway. I mean - I suppose it was always not that I was afraid of the darkness, but that I feared the unknown in general. I don't like the ocean, for example. It's too vast and humans have mapped so little of it. Part of the reason I became a cognitive scientist was to illuminate what's essentially private within everyone. So that no one would be able to hide anything from me."  
  
_And it hasn't worked_ , is the implication hanging heavily between the two of them. Thomas looks away and ahead into the distance for several seconds before glancing down at his lap. "I find the human preoccupation with light and dark bizarre. You cannot have one without the other. And yet," Thomas holds up his hand, letting his palm catch the glow of the streetlight behind him. "it _is_ compelling. I'm heavily dependent on binary myself. I don't think binary opposition translates to human morality or aesthetics or feeling, so that rules out a large part of what it is like to be a human, but the concept itself is simple and elegant and the compulsion towards it is understandable."  
  
"You don't think that there is good or evil?"  
  
The android shakes his head, once, very gently, just barely enough to be perceived. "No. But perhaps my thoughts can be considered or disregarded at equal field with other normative ones. I'm not a position to prescribe my views to someone else, most certainly. But that remains my opinion, Guy, that there are only the decisions that you make."  
  
The man bites his lip just slightly. "Hmm," he looks up with a wan smile. "I confess that I'm not sure whether I want to accept that."  
  
" _Pourquoi_ ," Thomas inquires. "do you feel that you make the wrong ones?"  
  
Guy has no answer. Only the breeze speaks for them for a while. The streetlight flickers off behind them and they are plunged into further darkness.  
  
"I've made plenty of those in my time, that much I can say," he finally utters, before pausing, clenching his white fingers once, twice. "... what I did. Last week. That was most certainly wrong of me. I'm sorry, Thomas. All this time I fancied myself different from those abusive owners and it-"  
  
He's interrupted by a decisive shake of Thomas's head. "Irrelevant. I wasn't angry with you in the first place. Only sorry for not having protected you, and having disobeyed your command," this is accompanied by his hand resting on his chest, where the heart usually goes. "would that indicate that I was defective?"  
  
" _Non._ If that's considered a defect, I'd much rather you stayed broken. But you reached out to me, Thomas, and I was glad for that," Guy laughs weakly - and without quite expecting it himself, the laugh turns into a kind of sob. "it can't have been comfortable for you to act against your programming. It's my fault that you have this free will and are suffering, and here I am, being _glad_ about it. I think that says more about my selfishness than anything."  
  
Something aches inside Thomas again. He can't very well tell Guy that he would rather carry on suffering than go back to being a blank slate. Thankfully, the scientist isn't looking for an answer; he merely smiles a little, tearfully, just managing to hold them in as he leans against the robot's shoulder. "... Bless you, Thomas... whatever will become of you after I die, now that you're more than the sum of your parts? Dying might not be for a long time yet, but I must. Humans weren't meant to walk the earth for so long."  
  
Thomas tilts his head. A piece of sheet music from Beethoven's String Quartet no. 16 flashes on his screen - one of his unique ways of _quoting_. " _Muss es sein?_ "  
  
" _Es muss sein,_ " the man nods. "I'm not tempted to defy death. I don't want you to throw me in a cryonic freezer, for example."  
  
"What _would_ you have me do?"  
  
Shrug. "I don't know. Scatter me somewhere. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust," Guy scuffs at the dirt beneath the bench slightly with his shoes. "it's you who I worry about, who will very much be affected by my dying. You could go on for twice, three times the average human lifespan, perhaps longer than that. Before I took you home I looked up what might happen to you in the case that I died early on, and the only option they offer is reformatting. I can't speak for decades later, your manufacturer might not even exist by then - you're shaking your head. All right. You don't want that," he rests one hand on Thomas's comfortingly. "neither do I. Not after the progress we've made in less than a year, who knows where you'll be when we're both old? I feel irresponsible. It'd be a shame to have that progress come to nothing but I also don't want you to walk the earth carrying that burden for God knows how long. The burden I ended up giving to you."  
  
"Then I'll join you," Thomas states so matter-of-factly that Guy stares, quite losing his train of thought. "this seems to be a simple solution."  
  
"What? Thomas, _mon Dieu_ , I don't want you to die because of me. That's far from the ideal solution."  
  
"I have no particular urge to go on without you. Not because you're my master or because my existence revolves around you. It's how I genuinely feel; I could deactivate myself easily. I was created with a self-destruct mode-" seeing Guy's disturbed expression, Thomas hastens to explain. "- every unit in my line has it, and it's disabled by default. But it's the one choice that we are _all_ able to make, should we need to."  
  
"Survival is the Third Law," the scientist's voice is mildly distressed. "you'd be in violation of it."  
  
"Yes, but the Third Law is also in relation to protecting a human being. When I'm alone in the world and no longer belonging to you, I will have no one to take orders from or whom I am obliged to protect. I could then choose to self-destruct peacefully or go on, and neither of them would be violations of the Law - and I'd rather I followed you, as opposed to wandering alone," Thomas reaches down and grasps a handful of dry sand. "you talk as if I would live forever or that I was obliged to live out my lifespan in full regardless of the circumstance. But what is death - I've thought about it a great deal and I've deemed it to be something inevitable, something with no meaning but what you attribute to it," then he scatters the dirt on the ground again, dusting his hands. "you would return to dust, you said. But the same is true of me. Silicon is derived from sand, metal will eventually corrode and return to earth, so will the plastic and wiring in my body. I'm at peace with that, Guy. I don't think there is a cause for concern."  
  
Silence. Guy closes his eyes. "You don't... have to, you know, choose that path."  
  
"No," Thomas says. "I don't."  
  
The horizon is turning a faint purple, far away, the night being dispelled. A strong breeze blows past them and ruffles Guy's hair about his face; shadows contour around his features, highlighting his brows and bold cheekbones, his lips set in a straight line that mirrors Thomas's own. He's become more wan-looking in the past few days, not having slept or eaten very well out of his guilt. Guy's eyes are light hazel, a bold ring of chocolate-brown around the edges of the iris and around the pupil that fade into a pale green shade in the middle; Thomas likes to just look and appreciate them now and then, finding the transition fascinating, but today they're all dark and half-lidded with sorrow.  
  
He moves closer. Guy downcasts his gaze quickly, although when he senses the android continuing to stare, he looks up again. In a way Thomas understands that what the man is feeling is self-consciousness, the vague awareness that he might not appear attractive or confident enough. But that's only in relation to certain viewpoints. Thomas is hardly the authority on aesthetics but he knows enough to have built up his own standards, and he looks at Guy's face and he thinks _ideal_ he thinks _beautiful_ he thinks _mine_.  
  
It was because of Guy that he could form his first notion of what a human face looked like.  
Of course he belongs to Thomas, and Thomas to him; once they were nothing to each other, but somehow their worlds have intersected and have become something that they cannot deny. A true miracle.  
  
"You said that only I could ultimately define my own existence," Thomas says as quietly as he can manage. "and I intend to. Sometimes the decisions I make revolve around you, but that in no way means that I consider myself your slave, or that I'm rejecting what you asked of me."  
  
"My existence didn't _have_ to involve you, Guy, but it does. Same goes for you. And I like having you here. With me," Guy is staring at him, tears brimming in his eyes, and the robot lifts up a hand to wipe them away before the other can protest - and indeed, the man never does, not after seeing that this has no ill effect on Thomas. His tears are warm, but dry effortlessly under the android's fingers. "... can you accept that this, too, is my choice?"  
  
Guy covers his face, letting out a sob. It turns a hoarse laugh not long afterwards, the good, overwhelmed kind, as Thomas confirms when he throws his arms around him and holds on tight. "Absurd," he chokes out. "completely and utterly illogical. _Human_. Oh, Thomas. That's the most beautiful gift you could have given me."  
  
He drops a kiss on the corner of where Thomas's mouth would be.  
Thomas can't kiss back, but inclines his head slightly to the right, hoping that his intentions go through. (And they do.)  
  
"Tell me," Guy whispers, their foreheads touching together. He links his fingers with Thomas's, delicate and human against faithful steel. "do you think you know what love is, now?"  
  
_Define: 'Love'_ , Thomas tries again. There is no response. The program has fallen silent.  
And then he knows that his search is over and that he has reached the point of contentment. Love is a _je ne sais quoi_ , that feeling one can 'only express in French', not a defined objective being-in-the-world but a _quality_ within a mind such as Guy's and his own. What they cannot speak of they must pass over in silence, there is no other way - but that only concerns the limits of language, whether spoken or thought.  
  
Thomas raises his hand and traces a finger down the other's cheek. Guy is full of warmth, of potential, of luminosity - the sun is beginning to rise and the sky is painting his hair golden, and there is nothing in language capable of conveying the beauty of that image, and _that is fine_. In that view lies a dream that they cannot voice but nevertheless share, deep inside beyond the limit of flesh or metal, where logic breaks down and love manifests as the good kind of hurt, sensors overloading and breaths quickening in wordless delight. He's found what he's looking for.  
  
"Affirmative."  
  
In that confirmation lies eternity, and oh; everything, everything is bright again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not a scientist nor a computing expert and I don't specialize in Latin.  
> I'm simply a philosophy student interested in phenomenology/free will/certain aspects of philosophy of mind and the dilemmas presented in _Electroma_ are basically what I have to ponder and study all the time please smack me if I'm laying it on too thick. Thank you.
> 
> **References/notes for those who like that kind of thing:**
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>  
> 
> * Asimov, I. 2004. _I, Robot_. New York: Bantam Books. (The Three Laws of Robotics were devised by Asimov in the 1942 short story, 'Runaround')  
>  * Dennett, D., 1988. 'Quining Qualia', _Consciousness in modern science_ , pp 42-77. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (For details re: what qualia is)  
> * Gaita, R., 2004. _The Philosopher's Dog_. New York: Randomhouse. (The 'pain in cufflinks' discussion was expanded and worked out further from a brief passage in pg. 55.)  
>  * Locke, J., 1690. _An Essay Concerning Human Understanding_. London: The Basset. ( _Tabula rasa_ as a concept originates here)  
>  * Sartre, J., 1977. _Existentialism and Humanism_. Brooklyn: Haskell House. (Responsibility, personal definition of one's life and authenticity are existentialist concepts summed up well here. I'm a modified Sartrean.)  
>  * String Quartet no. 16, Beethoven, 4th movement (' _Es muss sein/Muss es sein_ ' are quotes from this passage, played as a fatalism-related concept in Kundera's ' _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_ ' also. Also see Nietzsche's concept of _amor fati._ )
> 
> * 'TB3' is the name given in Thomas-bot's official schematics.  
> * 'No exit from this hell' is a reference to Sartre's ' _Huis Clos/No Exit_ '.


	2. Pour Autrui

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Disclaimer: I do not know any of the members of Daft Punk, this is strictly a work of fiction and I do not profit from nor claim to represent true aspects of their lives in this story.**
> 
> Oneshot, I said. Standalone, I said.  
> Well, that's no longer true. Two months from posting and I'm back! ' _Pour Autrui_ ' and at least one more fic set in this universe will soon emerge. Everything about this piece is excellent, because 1) it is not soulsuckingly depressing and 2) it is set _during_ Tabula Rasa. (This takes place between ‘pain in cufflinks’ and Guy’s personal crisis, so it's a midquel.) Contains copious amounts of food porn and fluff.

**Pour Autrui - A Daft Punk Fanfiction**  
  
\-----------------------------

Even in an increasingly-modernized France some things have remained the same, including the bakeries, and this is an immensely good thing. “As good an incentive to get up in the morning as anything,” Guy’s fond of saying in the mornings. “it’s been like that for ages now, and I hope it’ll stay that way. That’s not a sin against progress, is it, Thomas?”

"I don’t know enough about human morality to comment, Guy, but we’d at least be sinners together," is what the android tends to respond with, and that always makes Guy laugh and squeeze his hand affectionately. Coming from a robot, it is also a deeply _heartfelt_ sentiment, they know that all too well.

For years now, Guy has begun his days by heading to the local artisan _boulangerie_ \- guaranteed fresh, as by French law all bakeries must bake their own bread - at half five in the morning. It’s only in the last couple of months that Thomas has joined him; subsequently, those outings have become his main way of gaining knowledge of the world around them. Guy always buys a baguette (on average sixty-five centimetres long), and if he’s the mood he’ll also buy something small to go with it. That something varies by day - _pain au chocolat,_ apple tart, macarons, cream _gâteau, et cetera_. Every day, he bundles them tight to his chest as they leave the bakery, a determined look on his face, as if to swear on his honour that he won’t have a single bite before they’re home. Every day, he fails to uphold that promise. Guy loves to snack on the ends of baguettes, reaching over meekly to tear a small piece off and nibbling on it as they walk; Thomas carrying the bread hasn’t deterred him from this habit. The android can sense the childlike embarrassment within Guy whenever it happens, but he actually finds that to be something endearing about his master, and he wouldn’t want it any different for the world.

He fondly remembers the first time that he’d been allowed to accompany Guy in his early-morning strolls. He’s always home from work by six o’clock in the evening, but him being a scientist he is never truly at rest from his field at any time, often working late and through the night; at the time Thomas had been observing Guy struggling with a scientific paper for several hours, and it had been four forty-three in the morning when he finally wasn’t able to take it any longer.

"Mock on, Searle," Guy had exclaimed in disgust, throwing down his papers. "computers _compute_ , there’s no cure for that! Shallow! Illogical! _Ridiculous._ I’ve had enough, I’m going for a walk-” then he’d glanced at the clock, raising his eyebrows in half-bemusement. “- oh, I _see_. I might as well pick up a few things on the way. Thomas. Would you like to come along?”

Thomas had nodded straight away, curious to see what this routine that he’d always seen and never partaken in entailed. “If you’d have me.”

"Of course I’d have you, Thomas, who else? Let me put my scarf on."

And that’s how they’d ended up walking down the streets, Guy dazedly-awake and in his labcoat with his robot companion by his side, drawing curious looks from those who occasionally passed by. (Thomas has replayed this particular memory over a hundred times over, and despite his not-as-developed notion of aesthetics, he has to grant that they made for a somewhat mismatched sight back then.) “You were having a difficult time,” the robot had commented, scanning over the other’s form and the dark circles under his eyes. “it’s _Saturday,_ Guy, please take a rest when we’re back home. It can’t be healthy for humans to run continuously on a single charge - _non_ , I meant - _sleep cycle._ ”

"Not as unhealthy as letting anti-AI views permeate our subconscious to this day," Guy had sighed. His breath was briefly visible in the air as a pale condensed stream. "we _made_ artificial intelligence, we worked our way up from mere automatons to robots to persons like you. That’s amazing no matter how you look at it, and it’s _irresponsible_ to reject that. Oh my, it’s brioche weather.”

At first Thomas had thought that to be something nonsensical said out of exhaustion, but he has since realized that it’s not quite that simple. It had been a pleasant and bright morning that day, reflected in the rich-yet-uncomplicated brioche that Guy purchased alongside his usual baguette and ate with a generous dollop of golden-acacia honey. Other such weathers and corresponding baked goods exist: when it rains, his master sits by the window and muses, nibbling absent-mindedly on a croissant with sweet-sticky almond filling peeking coyly from between paper-thin layers of pastry; when the wind is particularly strong it’s a madeleine or two, taken with jam and hot tea and lemon ‘the way the English do it’, and so on. The logic behind _how_ various weather conditions and pastries link together in Guy’s mind is just shy of incomprehensible to the silver robot, but he knows that there _are_ consistent patterns, and he’s sensitive enough to recognize and internalize them.  
What’s not to like, brioche weather indeed.

All of that is daily routine. _Today,_ though, is a different matter. “Guy,” Thomas is saying quietly, leaning over the bed where the scientist is still fast asleep; when he rests his hand on the man’s forehead, he winces slightly, but doesn’t wake nor does he even move. “please wake up, it is nearly ten to five. _Guy._ ”  
  
No luck whatsoever. Guy isn’t the heaviest sleeper in the world, but today he’s _completely_ out of it, his slumber devoid of all sound. Thomas actively has to silence his own motor and take the other’s pulse to check that he really is breathing. Then he straightens up and gazes down at him, feeling somewhat helpless - even as a robot he can sense that forcibly waking him up will do more harm than good. Whatever Guy’s working on, it’s evident that he has a lot of it to take care of, and it must be exhausting.  
  
Staying here will achieve nothing, so he turns and leaves the bedroom. If there’s plenty of food in the kitchen, there might be no actual need for them to leave; Thomas opens the fridge and surveys its contents, unfortunately finding this to be not the case. There’s some tomato soup for Thursday, but it’s best that they don’t resort to that, for that might disrupt Guy’s routine for no real good reason. Best to leave that be. Aside from that there is a single avocado, a bowlful of strawberries, an egg, some apricot jam, a small jug of cream and some milk.  
  
Even without resorting to a recipe search he knows that there’s not a lot to be made with those - there’s one result for scrambled eggs with avocado, but it requires a different recipe for scrambled eggs to what Guy’s taught him and he doesn’t quite trust himself to improvise. Fruit alone also seems too insubstantial for a breakfast; his owner appreciates a solid meal. There’s a small freezer section at the top but he already knows that it’s empty. Closing the fridge door again, Thomas lowers his head and leans against the counter, unsure of what to do next. If he could frown, he would have.  
  
Guy’s not going to make it to the _boulangerie_ today. He possibly ought _not_ to, not when it’s only Wednesday and when he so desperately needs sleep - but at the same time, he does require something to eat for breakfast. The money for the bakery’s been set aside as per usual, and if they set off now they would still make it on time; everything would be routine, except for Guy not being awake.  
  
Thomas taps the fingers of his right hand on the kitchen counter (twice over, from little finger to thumb) while he computes his next action. He can do nothing and wait until Guy opens his eyes; he can wake him up more forcefully; he can leave him to sleep and make breakfast with whatever else is available; if none of those things are desirable, then Thomas can also go on his own.  
  
What an interesting option. Thomas reasons his way through the latter more thoroughly, wondering if it is _justified._  
Guy has never forbidden him to set foot outside, the money on the bedside table is intended for the purpose of buying bread already, and he can take the spare set of keys - he is not leaving without notice, rebelling, stealing, or locking Guy indoors with no way to leave. No Laws are being violated. Doing nothing seems unsatisfactory, there’s not much to make any breakfast with, and there is no _absolute, necessary need_ to wake Guy just yet; bakery visit or not, if he’s awake by seven at the latest, he can go to work in time. To make absolutely sure that this _is_ the most ideal thing to do, Thomas checks all the cupboards; plenty of condiments and other ingredients, but there’s nothing there that he can cook or fits the criteria of breakfast. (Admittedly Thomas’s sense of what consists ‘breakfast food’ is not that strong, but even he can appreciate that gelatin-based desserts might be inappropriate.) The sight confirms to him that he should take further action and head out himself, so he turns out the lights in the kitchen and begins to get ready as quickly as he can.  
  
When he re-enters the bedroom to retrieve the cash, his master is still lying fast asleep on the bed. He’s turned to face the ceiling since, lips curved in a very slight smile, a lock of his hair drifting over and partially hiding his eyes. Thomas leans down, careful not to make a sound, and gently sweeps Guy’s hair out of his face before pulling the blankets further up and tucking him in. “Mm,” he murmurs when Thomas’s fingers brush against his skin, and the robot pauses; but he doesn’t stir any further, and carries on sleeping.  
  
Thomas watches him for a moment or two more, feeling a little twinge inside. Whether it’s fondness or disappointment, he can’t quite tell. It might be both.  
Eventually he leaves the room after taking the money and heads for the front door, keeping his footsteps as quiet as possible, taking the spare key from its holder and slipping it into his pocket. Guy’s scarf (long, beige, cashmere) is lying on the side, folded neatly into eighths. As a robot he has very little use for scarves - really, he has little use for _clothing_ in general, though he’s fully aware that going around without it would be alarming - but he pauses nonetheless. He won’t be with Guy today; surely it won’t hurt to take a little _something_ of his with him, just to keep him company?  
  
Thomas knows that this is as illogical as they come; if he wanted to remind himself of his master, he could do that just as well by memory. Still, something within him insists that _that wouldn’t be quite the same, would it now, Thomas,_ so he picks up the scarf - drapes it around his neck twice with the ends laying straight down across his chest, the way Guy does it - and checks himself in the nearby mirror to see that he looks presentable before quietly letting himself out of the apartment.  
  
——-  
  
Thomas is very popular with the regulars.  
  
After five minutes’ walking down the pavement, he crosses the street after a moment’s pause (no traffic from either side) and glances at the left; there’s an elementary school just down that road, and whenever he passes by this area he feels a slight warmth at what that reminds him of. Sometimes, when he and his master go down to the _boulangerie_ together, they see parents with their children by their side. They’re almost always below ten years of age, too young to be left alone, with sleep in their eyes; but whenever they see Thomas their faces light up with curiosity, even the ones who have never seen him before. All the children they’ve met so far have thankfully been too awed and too polite to pester either him or Guy - the robot has had the impression for a while that Guy thinks himself very distant from children altogether, even though he _is_ kind to them - though they’ve still interacted with many of them. Some shyly come up to the two of them to say hello and then run back to hide behind their parents, peeking out cautiously all the while. Some say nothing and just stare in wonder. A few have been brave enough to start up a proper conversation, getting their pleasantly-amused parents involved in the process as well; just a week ago a young girl, who couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old, asked to touch Thomas’s hand and stared at him wide-eyed when he’d easily agreed to the request.  
  
"But, _Maman_ ,” she’d exclaimed, her own hand white and tender-fragile against his. “he’s so _warm!_ ”  
  
The adults in the meanwhile are fascinated with how Thomas _speaks_ \- no trace of the expected monotone, soft-spoken (though formal), gentle with only the faintest of metallic timbre in his voice, able to laugh, even displaying a similar Parisian lilt to his words in the same way Guy does. The common perception of robots as impersonal and ice-cold has lost much of its actual credibility, but it’s still a prominent idea in people’s minds; it does them a lot of good, Thomas being there to demonstrate the opposite.  
  
It wouldn’t be too farfetched to claim that their combined presence has caused a surge in customers. Alongside the fact that Guy is known in the community already as a hardworking scientist and an amiable (if quiet) man, they’re a picture-perfect sight for those who’re willing to get up early enough in the morning. After all, this is a world where companion robots are a _known_ sight, if not quite yet _common_ ; of his line, however, Thomas is the only one around for miles. This has given him somewhat of a local celebrity status, and it’s gotten to the point where people will greet them energetically and offer him handshakes the moment they enter the shop.  
  
"We live in a good neighbourhood," Guy had commented the first time that happened, combined with a gentle smile and nod. Thomas hadn’t understood the full implications of what that meant at first; it hasn’t been until very recently, after finding out a little more about how robots can be treated in the world, that he’s come to appreciate that they are - indeed - living in a ‘good neighbourhood’.  
  
The bakery is just ahead. Seeing this makes him quicken his pace, and he unconsciously raises his hand to adjust the scarf around his neck as he hurries towards the shop, just like the way Guy would. There are a couple of people in there, though no children are visible. “ _Bonjour_ ,” he calls quietly as he pushes open the door, making sure to shut it firmly behind him; the middle-aged couple who runs the bakery turn around from their position behind the counter, beaming and calling out a ‘ _bonjour!_ ' in unison upon seeing him. There's a young dark-haired woman in the shop, an early-bird student who they've passed by a few times before; when she sees Thomas she raises her hand in a silent hello, looking very sleepy and out of it. He reciprocates the greeting and heads over to where the baguettes are, past the still-warm golden pastries and stacks of colourful macarons already being built up into a tower display, seeing an old man with dark glasses over his eyes and a robotic guide dog on their way out.  
  
This man, too, is well known in the area: he has lived here all his life and he was one of the earliest members of the community to be aided by a robot. (Guy knows him from his first bout of work experience, in telecommunications, where the old man had been working as well.) Technology is still not at the level where they can illuminate the whole world to those who were born unable to see any of it; but as the old man can doubtless testify, it has come a very long way in a relatively short time, and for the unquestionable good of the people. “ _C’est Thomas?_ " the man asks, a gentle smile rising to his lips as he hears the robot approaching. "Thomas Bangalter?"  
  
 _"Bonjour, Monsieur."_  
  
"That sounds like Thomas, all right," he says, and extends his hand. Thomas takes it and shakes it briefly, mindful of the pressure of his fingers. "I don’t hear Guillaume with you this morning. Down, Pepin. (This is addressed to the dog.) Is your master well?"  
  
"I’d quite like to know that, myself," the man behind the counter calls. "he hasn’t missed a visit in _months._ Is Guy not well today?”  
  
It takes Thomas a few seconds to try to formulate an answer.  
He knows to be careful with people. This is an accepting neighbourhood, but he’s aware of his own consciousness enough to tone it down in public, not wanting to come across as _too much_ of an individual spirit. Guy encourages his individuality and autonomy fullheartedly - he and Thomas could have a furious argument, and the scientist would consider that a triumph of artificial intelligence - but there is no guarantee that other people would feel exactly the same, and he doesn’t want to unnerve them. “He was too tired this morning, so I’ve come in his place. But he’s not ill.”  
  
"Will he be back tomorrow?"  
  
"I’m ninety-four percent certain of that, yes."  
  
The old man chuckles, adjusting the bag of pastries under his arm. “Do tell the boy that I said hello, Thomas, and to take care of himself. Winter’s coming and his work is hard. _À la prochaine!_ "  
  
A gentle pet to Pepin’s head, a tug on his leash, and they’re on their way. Thomas watches them go, focusing on how well their actions are synced together; Pepin has all the well-calculated and smooth movements of a robot and the light, carefree pacing and voice of an actual dog. A different kind of robotic companion altogether from him, and yet efficient in its own way; there are better models and better actual dogs out there, but the old man is too attached to Pepin to consider any other, and that’s perfectly understandable. Guy has never discussed Thomas’s pricing with him, nor the general idea of him being one of the highest-quality models available, finding the topic demeaning to what he has proven himself to be. The android, in turn, has never brought up the subject, although he has become worldly enough to run a few searches by himself in secrecy; through that he’s managed to figure out where he and his fellow units stand in the market, and so far has been relieved that they have not been surpassed.  
  
That’s just a matter of time, though. There is nothing that he can, or arguably _should,_ do about the nature of progress.  
  
But really, Thomas is less afraid of being considered outdated to the world than he is about being outdated to _Guy._ This is a deep, unspoken, primal fear within him that will haunt him through most of his life, a source of painful existential anguish that will simultaneously throw him into doubt and yet give him the will to better himself day by day. However, now isn’t the time for him to suffer from that anguish, because as of yet he has no _firm_ grip on that notion. Now is the time to pick up the baguette of choice in his hands and take it to the counter for purchase, so he does exactly that, noting with an inexplicable pleasure that the one he chose is exactly sixty-five centimetres in length.  
  
Guy is a scientist, so he lives for the moment where things all fall into place, when he can laugh and exclaim a confident _eureka._  
  
"Just the baguette today then, Thomas?"  
  
That aspect of him probably imprinted on the android. It only makes sense.  
  
 _"S’il-vous plaît."_  
  
"Not if I can help it," the woman behind the counter shakes her head, and Thomas blinks a question mark, unsure how to respond. "that’s one-twenty Euros - thank you, and now if you could give me a moment."  
  
She deposits the money and is gone before he can respond, and when he leans forwards a little, he can see that the couple are talking in low voices to each other. Knowing that it’s none of his business, he reluctantly steps back and tries to focus on what’s around him as he tends to do when faced with unexpected circumstances. The young student seems to have found nothing of interest and is walking towards the door, rubbing her eyes tiredly; he gazes at the tiny pearls, edged with gold, in her pierced ears until she leaves and the couple both return. “There,” the woman says, passing a brown paper bag with the bakery’s logo printed on it to the robot. “take it, Thomas, it’s a present for the two of you. There’s some brioche and a note in it, Guy will know what to do.”  
  
"… I… Madame, this is quite sudden…"  
  
She waves him off. “Nonsense, we _were_ planning this for some time, and if Guy isn’t in the best of states right now he could use something to cheer him up. We just wanted to thank the two of you for coming in so often and so early - we’ve seen Guy around for years, and since you’ve come into the picture, it’s been a joy to see you two in the mornings. That’s all.”  
  
"And you don’t require any payment for this at all?" Thomas asks, still bewildered; his confusion stems from the fact that he hadn’t inferred any _visible_ relationship of note between his owner and the couple until now.  
  
” _Mon Dieu,_ not at all! All we ask is for you to keep on coming, we’ll do our best in turn. The least we can do - the least _anyone_ can do for someone else in this world, even - is to be _kind_. Remember that, Thomas.”  
  
And remember it he will, for a very long time. It’s almost in a daze that he thanks the owners and leaves the bakery with the two items in hand. The chime above the door clinks lightly as he steps outside and gazes upwards at the sky, which is beginning to turn a light-creamy blue. (A small amount of heat escapes his air vent, but as he doesn’t ‘breathe’ any moisture that can condense, nothing can be seen of it.) The temperature is zero degrees Celcius, set to warm up to six or seven degrees as the sun rises, and it’s set to be a clear late-autumn day without clouds and a pleasant breeze. Just as fortune would have it, today it _is_ indeed brioche weather, and for an instant Thomas acutely feels the twirl of epistemic luck within him as he begins his journey back home.  
  
——-  
  
"Where have you been?"  
  
That is the first thing Thomas hears when he returns to the apartment and heads indoors to come face to face with Guy; he’s wearing nothing but a dressing-gown, clearly having woken up not very long ago, looking more puzzled than upset. But the smell of freshly-baked bread on Thomas’s clothing gives away where he’s been before the robot can speak up, or even before he notices the baguette clutched in his arm. “Thomas, have you…”  
  
"I went to the _boulangerie_. I apologize for leaving without notice,” Thomas says, and the other blinks in disbelief. “it didn’t seem right to wake you up, you seemed so tired. And this-” he holds up the paper bag. “- the owners gave me this as a present for both of us.”  
  
"… From the _owners?_ ”  
  
” _Oui_. They sent you their regards, Guy, and said that they were hoping to see both of us tomorrow. There was a note in there, I haven’t read it, but-” he produces the piece of paper from the bag and hands it to Guy, who takes it and reads the short message scribbled on it with a look of stunned wonder.  
  
 _\- Thomas just came in, he is so good to you._  
 _We are glad. Please rest and be well soon._  
  
 _Thank you so much for your continued patronage._  
 _We’re not sure whether Thomas appreciates music, but we hope he likes it all the same._  
  
 _À bientôt! -_  
  
"… When did you leave the bakery?"  
  
Thomas consults his internal memory. “Approximately at quarter to six.”  
  
"Playback sound recording from twenty to six, if you could, Thomas."  
  
An equalizer display flickers on the robot’s visor, and he does as asked, playing what his internal camera recorded as Guy stands there to listen. The first couple of minutes is all that he needs to confirm what he already cannot doubt; it’s just _genuinely_ news to him that his and Thomas’s visits are so valued. Certainly something pleasant to be waking up to.  
He’s practically obliged to visit the bakery owners and say his thanks in person; but that’s something for tomorrow, when he’d have put together a small gift and a letter for them. Thomas is currently in his more immediate interests.  
  
"I was so _worried_ about you,” he exclaims, beckoning the robot close and into a hug that conveys his relief. “but you’re safe, and - and you did this for my sake, oh, I’m so _glad_ ,” Thomas’s arms wrap easily around his waist as well, and Guy (now feeling elated) tiptoes to _finally_ greet the silver robot with his well-deserved kisses to the cheeks. His motor whirrs a little louder in response, and Guy thinks for a moment that the other’s hands are lingering longer than they normally do. “… I think that scarf suits you better than me, honestly. What made you want to take it?”  
  
"Because it was cold," Thomas replies sincerely, and Guy stifles a grin. The cold is of very little consequence to the android unless rain, snow or rather extreme negative temperatures are involved, because he can simply adjust his internal temperature and go on for as long as his charge will last him. But he chose to authentically tolerate it, taking a small part of Guy with him for comfort instead.  
  
It’s entirely expected that Thomas should be so attached to him.  
Guy prefers those moments of independent affection, anyway. It’s good to feel loved.  
  
"We should get you one, too. What colour? Or would you prefer another one like this?"  
  
The silver robot considers for a moment as he takes the scarf off, folding it back up again just the way he found it the first time. “I’m not quite sure,” he admits, patting the fabric into place and setting it down by the side. “perhaps black or a dark shade to compliment yours. But I really took it to remind myself of you. It made me-” he tilts his head to the side. “- feel _happy_. Yes. I’m certain of that. Oh, and before it leaves my mind-“  
  
Reaching over, Thomas carefully tears off a piece from the end of the baguette, taking care to not spill too many crumbs on the floor. “For you,” he says, and offers it to Guy at mouth level, clearly wanting him to take it directly from his hand. _He wants to feed me, oh God,_ the man thinks frantically - especially when the android rests his other hand on his shoulder, drawing them close in an almost-embrace - but accepts the morsel nonetheless, lips brushing against the other’s fingertips before he pulls away, shyly covering his mouth with his hand. The bread is delicious as always, giving way with a light _crunch_ when he bites into it - but it’s because of the small ‘smile’ that Thomas displays on his screen before he quietly moves away that Guy feels a sudden, intense warmth in his heart. He almost wants to hug and kiss Thomas all over again. It is only with the utmost self-control that he resists, being aware of the time.  
  
Thomas has in the meanwhile moved to the kitchen, setting down the baguette and the paper bag from the bakery on the table. “Guy, is there anything particular you’d like for breakfast?”  
  
"Do we still have eggs?" he checks, and tuts as he takes out the single one from its holder. " _egg,_ singular, even. _Pain-perdu?_ If it’s not too much to ask.”  
  
French toast normally shouldn’t be made with fresh bread, because that tends to fall apart easily. Luckily, Thomas is at hand, and he’s capable of beyond-human precision when it comes to such things. “Not at all, I’ll get to it, Guy.”  
  
"Thank you."  
  
Thomas takes the baguette, while Guy surveys the contents of the bag more closely. Inside are three small fluffy brioches, no bigger than the palm of his hand, a CD, and a little square basket filled with ten chouquettes and wrapped in plastic. Filled choux-pastry is one of Guy’s deepest guilty pleasures, purchased only when he is deeply stressed and needs something to get him through the day or when he’s feeling celebratory for some reason, and the bakery owners know that. Leaving the chouquettes for later - that reassuring crunch of pearl-sugar is something to look forward to, certainly - he takes out the brioches and sets them out on a plate.  
  
"Thomas, if you could add one of those to my plate," he calls quietly, and only then does he leave for his long-overdue shower, wanting to seek breathless solace in the heat. Thomas responds in the affirmative, and gets out a larger plate to put a single brioche on before resuming what he was doing. French toast, one of the earliest meals that he watched Guy make and subsequently learnt.  
  
One egg, a teaspoonful of sugar, a tiny amount of vanilla extract, a sprinkle of salt and cinnamon, and seventy millilitres of milk.  
Taking into account that the bread is very soft, he readjusts the last ingredient to around half its usual amount instead. Normally he’d use two eggs, but one will do just fine in this situation, too much egg mixture is the last thing this needs. Thomas puts the ingredients aside and slices thickly into the baguette first, the serrated edge of the bread knife sinking easily into the surface, and separates two slices from the whole before wrapping up the baguette and setting it aside. (That’s the only bad thing about those, they never keep their softness beyond a day.) As he can’t touch liquids with ease, he opens the cupboard and fishes out two disposable latex gloves, making sure that they fit snugly halfway up his arms, before getting to work on the mixture.  
  
Soon the frying pan is on the stove, low heat, a slab of butter set to melt on its surface while he beats the egg mixture smoothly with a small metal whisk. The single egg is broken now, its two half-shells stacked, cleaned and set aside; the first time he tried to crack open an egg he ended up crushing it into a sticky mess, so since then he’s come a _very_ long way. Thomas quite enjoys contemplating eggs, it’s probably something about their shape, ovoid and smooth and elegant. (He likes spinning the raw ones, especially, finding the trajectory of the yolk within them amusing.) He dips the two slices of baguette in the mixture and just as quickly takes them out again, finding that it’s become absorbed into the bread quicker than expected, and without hesitation drops them into the frying pan. They sizzle almost immediately before quietening down, a sign that everything’s going well.  
  
He consults the time. Close to half past six. Guy’s still enjoying his shower.  
  
Brioche, two slices of _pain-perdu_ , what next? “… A drink,” he utters out loud, answering his own question - he’s become fond of talking to himself nowadays - and casts his gaze onto the drying rack. There’s a stovetop coffee maker from when it was used and washed yesterday. Thomas has heard only too much of the rejuvenating properties of coffee, and his master likes it brewed this way the best - beans ground lightly by hand, heaped generously upon the filter, water filled at the bottom of the pot, then all three parts assembled and left to brew under pressure. Thomas himself likes the elegant efficiency of the _device_ \- he suspects that he likes making coffee more to admire the coffee maker than the actual drink, but then isn’t that the most logical reason in his perspective? He flips the French toast over before getting to work on that, noting to his pleasure that they’ve been nicely fried.  
  
Not five minutes later the coffee is brewing on the stove, and Thomas is just about to check on the bread again when the creak of the bathroom door makes him pause. When he just slightly turns his head, he sees Guy leaving the bathroom, a towel around his waist and another in his hands, his long hair wet and slick down his shoulders. He hasn’t started drying it off yet, so drops of water are dotting his skin and streaking down his back; he’s standing still, letting the steam behind him dissipate, bringing himself slowly back from the heat of the shower. Thomas is in that instant grateful for the design of his helmet; his optical sensors are positioned as such that his field of view is just slightly over 180-degrees, more than humans, and with full depth perception at all angles. This allows him to act as if he hasn’t noticed Guy, his body just slightly turned away towards the frying pan, when in reality he can carry on watching him quite comfortably. As Thomas makes to flip over the _pain-perdu_ Guy shivers and tilts his head back, finally blotting the moisture out of his hair and draping the second towel around his shoulders when he’s done. His skin is faintly pink, the slight flex of his spine aesthetically pleasing, and as he walks back to the bedroom the android takes note of how his backside curves beneath the towel, taut and smooth.  
  
Heat circulates slightly faster within him, pooling close to his face and specifically near the two spots where he loves being kissed. Thomas raises a hand to his face, uttering a soft ‘oh’ quite without noticing that he’s doing so, cautiously brushing his fingertips against the curve of his chin and then to his cheek, thinking of his master’s body. It’s his first time truly _experiencing_ it, but this is a phenomenon that he has _observed_ in the other before, where his cheeks redden and heat up during times of embarrassment or pleasure.  
When that happens in Guy, he calls it a ‘blush’. He too will call this a blush, in that case; the context seems appropriate enough.  
  
Guy’s disappeared out of sight, and the French toast is now done. Turning off the heat, Thomas plates the two slices of baguette and leaves them to rest for a moment as he fetches the avocado from the fridge. This is the only food item out of everything in the house that he truly doesn’t understand - he knows how to open it and get the seed out, but doesn’t know how to check if it’s ripe (even Guy gets this wrong now and then), how to incorporate it into various recipes, or even what it tastes like. The scientist has tried many times to describe the taste and always failed; ‘like butter’, ‘like when you’re freshly polished and I’m stroking you on the head’ or just plain ‘smooth’ is about as close as he’s gotten, but those descriptions also apply to a whole plethora of other foods, and Guy absolutely insists that avocado tastes _very different_ compared to them.  
  
Oh, well. He’ll find out one day. He can’t wait for them to actually develop taste sensors, it would make their lives so much easier.  
  
"Guy?"  
  
 _"Oui, je suis là."_  
  
And he is. Guy’s dressed in black trousers and a plain burgundy sweater vest over a button-up shirt, though he’s not wearing a tie. He must be working in the lab today. “Oh, that smells delicious, Thomas,” he grins, before noticing the avocado. “… I almost forgot I still had that.”  
  
"Is it ripe? I can never tell."  
  
The man lets out a low ‘hmm’ and takes it to check, pressing it gently to check for give and then glancing at the stem. (It’s still green.) “You know something, I can’t, either. I’ve got this, Thomas,” he says. Thomas moves to make room for him. Fetching a sharp knife from the drawer, Guy stands the avocado on its side and slices into it lengthwise around the seed, remarking that yes, it is good for eating. “I only want this half,” he says also, more to himself than to Thomas, and opens the overhead cupboard for the plastic wrap, pulling out the box with one hand and tearing off a section without even looking. The robot watches, admiring his dexterity - something he himself cannot yet replicate, as subconscious action and muscle memory is much harder for him than it is for Guy. Then the coffee pot sputters slighty from behind him and he hastily turns off the heat, letting it steep a little more, looking around in time to see the man whacking the knife onto the avocado pit before giving a single twist and liberating it from the rest of the fruit.  
  
This is his favourite part when it comes to anything regarding avocados. Something about it is immensely satisfying. Thomas can admit that shamelessly, and by the looks of it, his master can, too.  
  
The _pain-perdu_ is cooled down well enough by this point. Guy always likes one plain and one spread with honey or apricot jam. Thomas gets to it, heaping a generous amount of golden jam onto the bread, observing some of it sinking into the surface before spreading it thickly onto the rest of it. A little bit of the apricot jam drips from the side and Thomas carefully mops it off with the edge of a fork, moving to deposit it in the sink.  
  
"Ah, no," Guy calls, picking up the plate. "I’ll just use that one. If you’d let me-"  
  
Thomas turns around and nods, displaying another smiley on his screen. When Guy gestures, he understands and holds up the utensil so that the other can lick it clean; seeing Guy’s lips close around it reminds him of earlier, how warm and light their touch had been on his fingertips. “ _Mmh_ ,” he mumbles around the fork before easing it carefully out of the other’s hand, only grasping it then with his own before taking it with him. The android has a fascination with Guy’s mouth, his own being little more than a horizontal line where his air vents are - he likes how _soft_ his lips are, how they curve in decidedly non-horizontal ways, how they manage to carry so much emotion without him saying a _single thing_. Because of those things and the capacity for speech and taste, Thomas has made the inference that the human mouth conveys significant intimacy and importance, and because of that he adores it whenever Guy kisses him.  
  
Guy likes kissing Thomas too. For somewhat different reasons, but he’s not dwelling on them at present. “I still had those?” he’s murmuring as he takes out the bowl of strawberries. Some of them are too softened now to eat. He discards those and is left with half a bowl of fruit - he might as well have them now, there’s no use in letting them sit around for even longer. He stashes the wrapped half of the avocado in there, brings the plate and strawberries to the table and sits at the same time as Thomas approaches with the cup of coffee, setting it down carefully in front of Guy. _"merci."_  
  
 _"De rien,"_ Thomas nods, but unlike what Guy expected, he stays by his side, seemingly hesitant to leave him be. Guy’s utterly mystified to what he might be wanting until he notices a slightly different scent to his coffee and picks it up to taste. The usual bittersweet richness is still there, but today the flavour is offset by something lighter, creamier, curiously spicy-floral-  
  
"… Thomas, did you put _vanilla sugar_ in this?”  
  
The android nods silently, but really, he doesn’t even need that answer. The entire kitchen is fragrant with it. From taste alone he can infer that Thomas couldn’t have used more than a single teaspoonful, but Guy literally never throws away vanilla pods and hasn’t topped up the sugar in that special blue jar for a while - over time the flavour must have intensified, he never remembers it being this powerful. Dazed by that and the fact that Thomas has _improvised_ , he swirls the coffee and takes a longer sip, involuntarily letting out a sigh as he lets the accent of the liquid fade slowly on the tip of his tongue. Beside him the android visibly relaxes; a smile rises to his lips then, and he glances at the strawberries next to him.  
  
He hasn’t even begun on the main bulk of the meal and it’s already shaping up to be a decadent one. He might as well take it a few steps further. Standing up, he gets the jug of cream from the fridge, noting with some amusement that they’ve practically cleaned out the whole thing with this one meal. But then breakfasts have never been quite this intimate and special, either. Tilting the jug close, he gives the coffee a few quick stirs with the teaspoon before letting the cream drip in.  
  
 _Un,_ Thomas sees Guy’s lips move silently as he counts the drops, and mentally joins in. _Deux. Trois._  
  
The cream swirls along with the current, forming for one moment a perfect ring of white in the middle of the coffee, then blends in. They watch this with almost-reverent silence; then Guy sits back down, pours the rest of the cream over the bowl of strawberries, and smiles up at Thomas. “Might as well finish it off. Come sit with me, please?”  
  
"I will. Please give me a moment."  
  
Thomas discards the latex gloves, checks the stove again, and then sits down at the table. From his pocket he produces the washed avocado pit, seemingly amusing himself with rolling it on the surface; the man observes this with some humour, marveling at how much Thomas is learning from day to day. “Is your breakfast to your liking, Guy?”  
  
"Oh yes. Definitely. Thank you, Thomas," he smiles, and gestures at the seed. "funny, aren’t they?"  
  
"It makes me feel happy," Thomas repeats, not knowing quite how to describe the experience of whimsy. "is it possible to grow anything out of them? In this climate and conditions, I mean? It seems a shame to throw every seed away."  
  
"Of course. I don’t think we’d get any fruit out of them, though, but we could still start a plant in here. We get plenty of sun."  
  
The silver robot nods, and falls back into contemplation while his master resumes his breakfast. The baguette is perfectly fried, with not even the faintest hint of grease on top; it’s the one with jam that he cuts into first, shamelessly admiring the sweet taste. The bread’s still _extremely_ soft inside as well, unlike how it tends to become when made with older bread.  
For the plain one he scoops out a generous amount of the avocado and spreads the soft fruit atop it. One day he swears that he will be able to explain to Thomas what avocado tastes like; this is difficult enough to explain to _other_ humans, let alone non-humans. In fact, he doesn’t _ever_ recall successfully describing the taste of an avocado to another human being. As he raises a piece to his mouth and bites into it, uttering a quiet ‘mm’ at the fresh, earthy taste, Thomas glances up and he briefly wonders if the question will come up again.  
  
It doesn’t. But sooner or later it will. What a terrific intellectual puzzle, the taste of an avocado.  
  
"Did you see your present?"  
  
Thomas stops rolling around the avocado seed, and looks up at him with what Guy thinks is a confused ‘expression’. “… _Non.”_  
  
"It’s a CD. Something classical, I think. Do you want to play it?"  
  
"I’d quite like that - no, no," Thomas says hastily, getting up and stopping the other from doing so. "I’ll get it. There’s the one in the living room, isn’t there?"  
  
"That’s the one."  
  
CDs are a rather outdated form in this world, but because there had been a surplus of it before the various technological leaps and it remains relatively cheap to press them, they’re still enjoying some popularity. Even ancient vinyl still exists - there’s no escaping nostalgia, that inexplicable, powerful longing for what can never be again. CDs are a good format to enjoy the classics now, if nothing else. Thomas sets the CD to play and comes back with the case just as the first piece is starting up.  
  
From the very first few notes, Guy recognizes it, and smiles. He himself knew how to play this piece, just over a decade ago, as a schoolboy. There is no such similar recognition in Thomas, sadly, as he’s not well-versed in _any_ genre of music; this might largely be the scientist’s fault, as he never exposed the other to it much. There’s really no excuse for it. His music collection isn’t large, but it’s varied and sizable, and before his life became ‘busy’ he used to spend entire days listening to one CD after the other, straight from morning to night. At this point in his thought he’s interrupted by Thomas picking up a strawberry and offering it out to him.  
  
 _"… Oh! Merci."_  
  
Strawberries, their favourite fruit. Thomas knows the ideal ratio of cream to strawberry; it doesn’t even drip as he takes the berry into his mouth, stopping just shy of kissing against his fingertips. “That looks good,” the android says, but something about his tone is odd. He sounds emotional, kind of _touched_ even, and for a moment Guy wonders if he’s becoming moved by his inability to taste a strawberry before he realizes that it’s not that. Thomas is displaying a series of dim-but-visible lines on his screen that flicker and move in rhythm, and it doesn’t take long for Guy to deduce that he’s reacting to the _music_. Without quite realizing it himself, the android is beginning to articulate sounds in response - a quiet chirp at first like birdsong, then to a low hum before moving onto a surprisingly in-tune, musical and high-pitched sound that follows the dulcet melody of the piece. If he didn’t know better he’d say that it sounded like-  
  
"Why, Thomas," Guy says softly - then laughs, his voice ever so gentle. "you’re _whistling_.”  
  
The silver robot startles at that, though, and stops, much to the scientist’s dismay. “… A-Am I? Oh,” pause. “ _oh_ ,” another pause. “but this is… still, this is w _onderful._ I haven’t heard this before. What’s the title of this piece?”  
  
” _Träumerei. ‘Rêverie’_ in French. By Robert Schumann, if I remember right - yes, I do (he’s checked the back of the CD case) - I’m more used to hearing it as a piano only piece, it’s even lovelier with cello… you can carry on, Thomas, I don’t mind at all. It’s absolutely charming.”  
  
The robot hesitates. Bashfully, he lowers his head and touches the tips of his fingers together, looking all gauche and shy almost like a child; but eventually he does resume, albeit with a low humming sound instead of a whistle. It’s still pleasant either way, Thomas’s voice being higher and more accurately-pitched than Guy’s, and in that moment the man decides that they’re going to have more background music from now on. His life is not so unforgivably busy that he can’t enjoy music now and then. Thomas reminds him of his younger days - as a child he’d picked up several instruments, and he had been good at them, before he gave them all up to devote his life to science. He could still perform amateurishly on a guitar, he’s sure, but he hasn’t even really thought about it until now.  
  
Thomas _enriches_ his life, and it’s not just because of the excellent food.  
  
All the French toast gone, he splits open the brioche carefully and spreads some more apricot jam on it, placing a strawberry between the two halves on a whim. The tartness of berry is balanced neatly with the slightly-cloying taste of the jam, which are then both mediated by the rich buttery brioche. Overall, it’s a perfect spectrum of flavours. When he’s done with that Thomas feeds him another cream-coated strawberry. All is good.  
  
"Guy."  
  
 _"Oui, Thomas."_  
  
"I was thinking about something that was said to me earlier," the robot says, and folds his hands gently in front of himself. "when I was talking to the owners… they said something interesting. About how one has to be kind to people, how that’s the least anyone can do for another."  
  
"That is sound advice. Entirely accurate. I’d also add that in the event where you can’t be kind - there are many cases like that, too, morality is complicated - to at least do no harm."  
  
Thomas nods. “ _Je sais_. But I was more wondering why they’d tied that kindness to us visiting them so frequently; you seemed surprised when you received that gift, I could sense that you weren’t _conscious_ of what they’d been thinking. Now I am aware that there are many ways to be kind to people: giving physical, mental, financial aid, simply exchanging kind words, giving comfort in what is considered to be a hopeless situation, and so on. It made me wonder if kindness is desirable for the sake of maximizing overall pleasure, or if there is something intrinsically good about it regardless of consequence?”  
  
This is yet another thing Thomas is excellent at. (He’s _miles_ better than a human being, in Guy’s eyes at least, at this point.)  
His field requires that his thinking gears be near-perpetually engaged, and the android certainly helps to keep them oiled, figuratively speaking. “That’s a difficult question, and I have so little time left to answer it,” Guy says, sipping the last of the _crema_ off his coffee. “but you’re right in that I was surprised, and that my bakery visits weren’t done because I consciously wanted to make people happy. That was luck, but at the same time, I am extremely _glad_ for that having been the case. There is no sin in kindness, Thomas. There are times when certain acts of kindness are inappropriate relative to a certain situation, unnoticed or will lead to unsavoury conclusions, but a kind act will always remain kind-in- _itself._ So yes, I think ‘intrinsic goodness’ might be a good way to approach that.”  
  
"I see."  
  
"Kindness can give rise to so many pleasures in the world, too, Thomas. I’m not saying that that’s wrong. All the way from the small, material pleasures to the large ones, like friendship."  
  
"And interpersonal relations are some of the _most_ desirable?”  
  
"Well, _I_ think so. If we take this wonderful breakfast here as an example - who you eat _with_ might be far more important than what you eat, for example. There have been grander breakfasts than this in my life, Thomas, but I’ve always had them by myself and thus they weren’t especially meaningful to me. I can barely remember them. This is a meal I’ll remember for a long time, and I can tell you that it primarily won’t be for the food, as delicious as it is. Tastes are intense and immediate, but they fade quickly. Conversation, debate and company lasts much longer, and to some people, that’s to be cherished more than the immediate pleasures,” he shrugs a little, smiling, downing the rest of his drink. “… kind of… intensely Epicurean, that. I prefer a mixture of both. We’re on earth to fool around to _some_ extent, I’m sure.”  
  
"Has it always been that way for you, Guy?"  
  
"For me, even at the start of this year, it really was more about the actual food," Guy says - and smiles, reaching over to stroke over the top of the other’s hand. "then I met you."  
  
 _Ahh._  
  
And then _there_ it is again, the blush, seemingly drifting all the way down to his fingertips this time around. Thomas’s fingers curl softly in response, and even though his blush is totally invisible compared to Guy’s, he has a childlike, shy urge to lower his head and hide from the other’s smile. For now, though, he makes do with silence and leaning forwards just a little. Guy meets him halfway, having understood his body language, and rests his forehead against the other’s.  
  
In that moment, they are _here_ together, perfectly synchronized to one another.  
They are _here,_ as opposed to anywhere else, or nowhere. And here’s a beautiful place to be.  
  
The rest of the meal is eaten in silence, and Guy says that he’ll do the dishes when he comes home. Thomas clears away the plates, and Guy gets ready for work, putting on a light jacket over his clothes and emerging with his labcoat folded in his bag. “I’m going, now. I’ll see you later, Thomas,” he says - and even though it’s not routine, leans forwards and presses a kiss upon the other’s forehead. The silver robot accepts it graciously. “thank you for the breakfast, again.”  
  
"It was no trouble at all. I rather liked it."  
  
The scientist grins. “I’d love it if you could join me for more. But until then. _Bonne journée.”_  
  
 _"Bonne journée, Guy."_  
  
——-  
  
When Guy emerges from the Métro just short of half an hour later, he is miles and stations away from home. This is fact, and true _a posteriori_ , because his home, his workplace and the Paris Métro are all different places. But this exceedingly ordinary observation gives him a strange feeling of _lack_ , better expressed as a _manqué_ perhaps, the sense that he has been living his past hundreds and thousands of days with this _void_ within him and he somehow never noticed until now. As he blends into the suited-and-jacketed crowd, some carrying briefcases, some wearing uniforms and smart shoes and so on, he mulls over that a little more.  
  
Home. What is _home?_  
For Guy, it’s an apartment address in the sixteenth _arrondissement_ of Paris, but that definition is not what he’s interested in. No, he’s interested in home as a _personal space,_ where _his_ order applies, the heart of what is real to _him._ Even before Thomas came along, home was important to him, and it will continue to be regardless of actual location. But it’s _because_ of Thomas and the events of the morning that it’s sunk in for him that leaving home is not something to take lightly. He can only leave home in the first place because he _has_ one - it is because of that sense of belonging that such an expression is possible - and even though he’s not acknowledged it before today, leaving is not just a spatial separation.  
  
He ascends the stairs and leaves the station, emerging onto the pavement before continuing his walk. Now that he has Thomas waiting for him back home, the fact that leaving is also a deeply _emotional_ separation (whether wanted or not) has become evident. Home’s not just his shelter now: it’s safety, it’s where he can confirm that he is welcome, it’s where he can relax in the presence of another person at last. Guy has always been somewhat of an introvert, and despite a powerful dislike of the dark and loneliness, he could never stand to share his space (which he needed a significant amount of) with someone else. Before the android, he’d been thinking that he didn’t know how to do that at all. He’s been thinking wistfully all his life that it would be nice to live with someone he loves.  
  
Turns out he’s been doing exactly that for the past few months. He’s not sure what to feel about that, but it is a lovely feeling, so warm and all-consuming that he doesn’t know what to do with himself.  
  
With light heart and pace he passes a cafe on the way, one that he likes to frequent during lunchtimes. Their menu isn’t massively varied, but they do have a sandwich to die for; thick slivers of smoked salmon, watercress and lettuce on fresh warm buttered bread, with just the faintest spice of Dijon mustard to complete the taste. They also have an excellent _chocolat chaud_ , made with only finely-chopped dark chocolate and milk, whipped thickly and served as soon as the pan is removed from the heat. Who can resist the allure! Guy has never found anyone who could.  
  
Not until now, at least.  
  
Guy gives the interior of the cafe a quick glance as he walks past. It’s not quite open for business yet. It’s not until midday that Parisian cafes really open up and put their chairs outside, ready to cater to every person who wishes to put their lives on hold to enjoy some good food and gaze out upon the streets of this beloved city. He’s appreciative, but today it stops at that sentiment exactly - appreciation, but no _temptation._ His lunch hours are long, the commute is short, and he has a fridge back home to fill. No harm in getting the food shopping started a few hours early; already Guy has the idea of a panini in mind, though he’s not sure what to put in it. He’ll make it a new experiment, both for himself and for Thomas, though, for sure.  
  
He’ll go home for lunch today. Perhaps he can even get out of work early.  
He hasn’t spoiled Thomas for a while; there are kisses to give, intelligent debates to have, and recipes to demonstrate.  
  
Yes, he will.  
  
His scarf sways lightly in the wind, and he stops just outside of his workplace to pat it back into place, before pausing. Then he closes his eyes, takes a quiet breath, and hitches the fabric higher up to burrow a little into its softness. The morning is cool, its breeze sweet, sunlight spreading honey-smooth across the ground.  
Thomas has left him with his scent enclosed in his scarf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did I tell you, delicious breakfast. That and Epicurean ethics, a valid French toast recipe, affirmation of kindness, and heartwarming slice-of-life scenes.  
> Did I ever mention _how much I love food holy christ almighty_
> 
> I go on so much about the goddamn avocado because I actually don’t know what avocadoes taste like.  
> I grew up where they were uncommon as a child, and I don’t think I ever really registered them as food until recently. And the only one I had was unripe and tasted of pretty much nothing. Now I might be more ignorant in the field of tastes than I’d like to be, but I know what nothing tastes like, and let me tell you, _it doesn’t taste like avocado_. I wasn’t in the position to get another and find out - so I just made it all up! Please tell me if this was horrendously inaccurate.
> 
> The recording of Traumerei I had in mind is [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa72UfM2bPA). Now feel free to put that on and read over the breakfast scene again. God bless.


End file.
